New information about the 23andMe hack emerges. And it shows that certain people were targeted because of their genealogy.
Will the Californian firm be able to emerge from the controversy caused by the attack suffered last year? Difficult to say, given the problems which have accumulated in this file, and which are the subject of complaints. We learned last week that 23andMe had not noticed the hack still in progress even though the hackers had already reported themselves on a hacker forum. And today, even more serious information has been revealed.
Ethnic profiling of hackers
23andMe has faced several legal actions since the hack discovered last October. And one of them makes quite serious accusations against the company, since it allegedly failed to notify some of its customers who were victims of the hack that they had been targeted because of their ancestors.
This is how, according to New York Timesthat the information of more than 1 million customers with Jewish ancestry was revealed on 1er October, on the cybercriminal forum BreachForums. These included people’s names, dates of birth and addresses. Likewise, the information of 100,000 people of Chinese origin was communicated by the hacker, following a request made on the forum. The hacker claimed to have the information of a total of 350,000 people sharing this ethnicity.
Dangerous information?
The problem highlighted by the complaint here differs from many of the usual problems posed by hacks before. These attacks are in fact usually considered problematic for the money theft or identity theft that they can generate.
“ Now, when we look at data breaches, our first concern is whether the information will be used to physically harass or harm people in a systematic and large-scale manner » indicates one of the lawyers for the civil parties, Jay Edelson. For the moment, 23andMe did not wish to comment on this complaint.
Source : New York Times, Engadget
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