A data breach exposed over a million DNA profiles on Gedmatch
BuzzFeed News: Genealogy site Gedmatch confirmed a data breach that exposed more than 1.45 million DNA profiles. The site became famous after police used Gedmatch to catch the Golden State Killer without first warning the company. Afterwards, Gedmatch put in new controls to prevent cops from snooping on user's profiles without a warrant. But users last week found that their settings had suddenly changed to allow police access to their profiles. (A company spokesperson told me that no law enforcement requests for data were made during the incident.) Another alarm bell went off when a day later, Gedmatch-associated email addresses were used in a phishing attack on another genealogy site, MyHeritage. Gedmatch took a few days but eventually emailed to warn its users of the incident.
More: TechCrunch | Gedmatch statement
BuzzFeed News: Genealogy site Gedmatch confirmed a data breach that exposed more than 1.45 million DNA profiles. The site became famous after police used Gedmatch to catch the Golden State Killer without first warning the company. Afterwards, Gedmatch put in new controls to prevent cops from snooping on user's profiles without a warrant. But users last week found that their settings had suddenly changed to allow police access to their profiles. (A company spokesperson told me that no law enforcement requests for data were made during the incident.) Another alarm bell went off when a day later, Gedmatch-associated email addresses were used in a phishing attack on another genealogy site, MyHeritage. Gedmatch took a few days but eventually emailed to warn its users of the incident.
More: TechCrunch | Gedmatch statement
