Hackers on the website BreachForums stole user data from genealogy testing company 23andMe, targeting two particular groups: people of Jewish descent and people of Chinese descent.
The resulting hacker database focused on one subset of the Jewish diaspora, Ashkenazi Jews, who migrated to the Western Hemisphere from Central and Eastern Europe.
23andMe confirmed Friday that data had been compromised, but stated that its systems had not been breached.
“While we are continuing to investigate this matter, we believe threat actors were able to access certain accounts in instances where users reused login credentials – that is, usernames and passwords that were used on 23andMe.com were the same as those used on other previously hacked websites,” 23andMe said in a statement on its website.
At least one million users of Ashkenazi Jewish descent were affected by the hacking, as well as hundreds of thousands of people of Chinese descent.
The hackers are now attempting to sell the data from the hacked profiles, offering different packages for different prices.
The collection of hacked user data is titled “Ashkenazi DNA Data of Celebrities,” but most of the people on the database are not actually celebrities.
“Crazy, this could be used by Nazis,” one person told NBC News.
