23andMe is investigating stories of a brand new information leak involving hundreds of thousands of consumer data. On Wednesday, TechCrunch reported {that a} hacker claims to have leaked 4 million genetic profiles belonging to individuals in Nice Britain, together with “the wealthiest individuals residing within the U.S. and Western Europe.”
The hacker, who goes by “Golem,” is similar one which stole 1 million lines of genetic data from 23andMe earlier this month, based on TechCrunch. Golem posted this newest spherical of information on the hacking web site BreachForums.
Katie Watson, the vice chairman of communications at 23andMe, tells The Verge the corporate was “made conscious” that the identical hacker claims to have leaked one other trove of what they declare is buyer data. “We’re at present reviewing the information to find out whether it is respectable,” Watson says. “Our investigation is ongoing and if we be taught {that a} buyer’s information has been accessed with out their authorization, we’ll notify them instantly with extra data.”
In a blog post published on October sixth, 23andMe confirmed that the information included within the earlier leak was respectable and affected the platform’s DNA Family members function, which lets customers match with different potential genetic relations on 23andMe. On the time, 23andMe stated it discovered no signal of a safety incident inside its programs, including that the hacker was capable of entry customers’ accounts utilizing “recycled” login credentials that had been uncovered in different hacks.
This most up-to-date leak includes the DNA Family members function as effectively, probably enabling the hacker to scrape the data belonging to the relations that an account has matched with.