MyHeritage Suffers Breach Exposing Data of More Than 92 Million Customers

There are a lot of those DNA analysis companies these days. Just spit into a petri dish or prick your finger for a drop of blood and send that off to them. They’ll analyze it and send you back a report with all kinds of information about you. While it does seem great, and certainly there is a lot of great information one can get this way, it does beg the question, “What if they get hacked?”  And customers of MyHeritage may very unfortunately get to find out.

The company’s chief information security office, Omer Deutsch announced on a MyHeritage blog that on October 26, 2017, someone did indeed get ahold of a database belonging to the company that contained email addresses and hashed passwords of over 92 million customers up until October 26 of last year.

A data researcher found a database with the information and reported it to MyHeritage. The company reacted quickly but cannot confirm if anything illicit was done using the information. So far, it does not appear that DNA information was taken.

And that is a really good thing. Why? Well, think about how easy it is to change your payment card number if it gets stolen. A quick phone call usually does the trick. We can even change our social security numbers. It’s not easy, nor is it fast, but it can be done. However, science has not yet found a way for us to change our DNA.

First, if you are a MyHeritage customer, change your password right now. Even though they were hashed in the database, that doesn’t mean they can’t be figured out.

Next, once the company offers a two-factor authentication option, take advantage. They have announced it’s in the works and is due to be released soon.

Then, really consider how much participation you want to have with these DNA research sites. They don’t just take your sample, run through a machine and toss it into the garbage bin. Instead, they keep the information and do additional DNA research. Sometimes they even sell or provide the data to their partners.

Don’t panic though. The research is often, if not usually, done for very good reasons. It could be used to cure disease or create new life-changing medications. Just be aware that this does happen and consider if providing your DNA to them is the right choice for you.