The corporate mentioned it had reported the matter to legislation enforcement and that this was the primary incident of its form on the agency.
The information doesn’t embrace genomic particulars, that are particularly delicate, however does embrace usernames, regional areas, profile photographs, and beginning years. The usernames are sometimes one thing apart from full authorized names.
23andMe mentioned it was encouraging customers to alter their passwords and use two-factor authentication to stop others from logging in beneath their title.
On-line posts providing the information on the market in underground boards mentioned consumers may purchase 100 profiles for $1,000 or as many as 100,000 for $100,000. One put up mentioned the individual had uploaded a big database of Ashkenazi Jews. The corporate spokeswoman mentioned that would come with individuals with even 1% Jewish ancestry.
A few of the posts used the deal with “Golem,” a reference to a humanoid beast in Jewish folks tales.
The information taken from 23andMe may cowl greater than half of the corporate’s 14 million prospects, primarily based on the variety of individuals who’ve opted to make their knowledge seen to family members, together with distant cousins.
Whereas the reference to Jews might need been designed to attract consideration and enhance the percentages of transactions, it comes throughout a time of elevated rhetorical and bodily assaults on Jews in the US. Antisemitism has gotten extra traction previously yr on social networks for conspiracy theories that blame Jews for unlawful immigration, media manipulation or monetary misdeeds.