Many 23andMe customers signed up to the genetic testing service in hopes of learning fun or interesting information about their past.
But consumer advocates are now urging those users to request the deletion of their accounts and data from the site, to prevent their genetic information from ending up in unexpected hands. San Francisco-based 23andMe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday and said it would pursue a sale, after years of struggling to find a sustainable business model. That means the company — and the genetic information of its 15 million customers — will likely soon be up for grabs to the highest bidder.
Read more…
Source: CNN News
Related:
- 1.5 billion sensitive files exposed by misconfigured servers, storage and cloud services
April 5, 2018
Researchers have discovered over 1.5 billion sensitive files including payroll information, credit card details, medical data, and patents for intellectual property are exposed online, putting consumers and businesses at risk of theft, cybercrime, and espionage. But the information exposed online — which amounts to a total of 12,000 terabytes of data — isn’t there as a ...
- Expedia’s Orbitz Says 880,000 Payment Cards Compromised in Security Breach
March 20, 2018
Chicago-based online travel booking company Orbitz, a subsidiary of Expedia, reveals that one of its old websites has been hacked, exposing nearly 880,000 payment card numbers of the people who made purchases online. The data breach incident, which was detected earlier this month, likely took place somewhere between October 2016 and December 2017, potentially exposing customers’ ...
- Cambridge Analytica explodes following extraordinary TV expose
March 19, 2018
Controversial data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica has been hit with an emergency data seizure order in England following an extraordinary series of events Monday night that revolved around a TV undercover expose. Following a day in which the company became the focus of attention online, in print, and in the UK Parliament and US Congress for its ...
- National Lottery: 10 million players told to change passwords as attackers hit online accounts
March 19, 2018
Millions of National Lottery players have been urged to change their passwords following what parent company Camelot describes as “suspicious activity” involving lottery accounts. Camelot, which runs the National Lottery, insists there’s been no access to core systems or databases that would affect lottery draws or prizes, but has recommended that its 10.5 million registered users ...
- Facebook’s Role in Data Misuse Sets Off Storms on Two Continents
March 18, 2018
Facebook on Sunday faced a backlash about how it protects user data, as American and British lawmakers demanded that it explain how a political data firm with links to President Trump’s 2016 campaign was able to harvest private information from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without the social network’s alerting users. Senator Amy Klobuchar of ...
- Warning – 3 Popular VPN Services Are Leaking Your IP Address
March 13, 2018
Researchers found critical vulnerabilities in three popular VPN services that could leak users’ real IP addresses and other sensitive data. VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a great way to protect your daily online activities that work by encrypting your data and boosting security, as well as useful to obscure your actual IP address. While some choose VPN ...