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this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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And I agree with them, I mean 23andMe should have a brute-force resistant login implementation and 2FA, but you know that when you create an account.
If you are reusing creds you should expect to be compromised pretty easily.
A successful breach of a family member's account due to their bad security shouldn't result in the breach of my account. That's the problem.
Edit: so people stop asking, here's their docs on DNA relatives: https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212170838
It clearly says select information, which one could reasonably assume is protecting of your privacy. All the reports seem to imply the hackers got access to much more than just the couple fun numbers the UI shows you.
At minimum I hold them responsible for not thinking this feature through enough that it could be used for racial profiling. That's the equivalent of being searchable on Facebook but they didn't think to not make your email, location and phone number available to everyone who searches for you. I want to be discoverable by my friends and family but I'm not intending to make more than my name and picture available.
afaik there was no breach of private data, only the kind of data shared to find relatives, which is opt-in and obviously not private to anyone who has seen how this service works. In other words, the only data "leaked" was the kind of data that was already shared with other 23andMe users.
Name, sex and ancestry were sold on the dark web, that's a breach of private data.
The feature that lets a hacker see 500 other people's personal information when they hack an account is obviously a massive security risk. Especially if you run a single use service - no one updates their password on a site they don't use anymore.
Launching the feature in the first place made this inevitable.
It would be a breach if the data was private, but the feature itself exposes this data. That would be like presenting a concert to hundreds of people then complaining your facial attributes were leaked in social media.