Concerns have been raised about how 23andMe could potentially handle customer information due to the company’s uncertain future.
The South San Francisco-based DNA and ancestry company is currently floundering, and customers have raised concerns about what may happen to their personal information if the company is sold.
“The business model is the issue. If I do the test once, I am done, and I don’t have to do it again, which is why they are struggling,” said San Jose State University Professor Ahmed Banada, who studies technology and cybersecurity.
In October 2023, the company was hacked, exposing the personal information of nearly 7 million customers.
“In early October, we learned that a threat actor accessed a select number of individual 23andMe.com accounts through a process called credential stuffing,” according to a 23andMe blog post at the time. “That is, usernames and passwords that were used on 23andMe.com were the same …