DNA Information of Thousands of Individuals Exposed Online for Years

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It is being reported that Vitagene, a company that provides DNA testing to provide customers with specific wellness plans through personalized diet and exercise plans based on their biological traits, left more than 3,000 user files publicly accessible on Amazon Web Services servers that were not configured properly.

The information that was involved included customers’ names, dates of birth and genetic information (such as the likelihood of developing medical conditions), as well as contact information and work email addresses. Almost 300 files contained raw genotype DNA that was accessible to the public.

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Vitagene has been providing services since 2014 and the records exposed dated between 2015 and 2017. Vitagene was notified of the accessibility of the information on July 1, 2019, and fixed the vulnerability.

Copyright © 2019 Robinson & Cole LLP. All rights reserved.
This article was written by Linn F. Freedman of  Robinson & Cole LLP.

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