The Royal Family’s DNA profiles have been seized by a hacker who has leaked the genetic profiles of four million people.
The hacker, named ‘Golem’, has stolen the genetic profiles from DNA testing firm 23andMe and published the data on the cybercrime marketplace BreachForums.
It cited anger at Israel and its supporters as a motive for the leak.
Golum bragged that the leaked dataset includes profiles of the British Royal Family, dynasties such as the Rothchilds and Rockefellers and some of “the wealthies people living in the US and Western Europe”.
The hacker has given no insight on which members of the Royal Family have been targeted.
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It comes after an earlier leak targeted 23andMe customers of Jewish and Chinese descent.
The firm has yet to confirm whether the data breach was legitimate but TechCrunch has supported the authenticity of the leak.
Golem has claimed that the stolen detailed DNA profiles include email addresses, photos, gender, date of birth and genetic ancestry.
Posts online suggest profiles are being sold for £8 each ($10) or 83p ($1) if bought in blocks of 100,000.
The hacker wrote online: “I would like to remind you that even the data I’m sharing here is extremely valuable.”
Golem cited the recent explosion at a hospital in Gaza as motivation for leaking the genetic profiles, writing: “I’m not a Muslim, but I’m holding myself back with difficulty from uploading hundreds of [terabytes] of data to torrents due to the despicable Israel attacking the hospital.”
Both sides are blaming each other for the blast, which killed hundreds. Palestinian officials have blamed Israel for the exploision, while Israel has released evidence which it claims shows militants in Gaza were responsible.
23andMe has said it has not detected any system-wide breaches, and claimed the data may have been stolen from individual users who re-used passwords that had been breached on other sites. They have advised customers to change their password immediately.
The firm, founded in 2006, provides DNA testing to help a customer uncover ancestry and health information.
Tests for ancestry cost £99, while one for both health and ancestry costs £179. After paying for the test, a swab and tube is sent to the customer to provide a saliva sample to be used for analysis.
The results are then turned into “personalised genetic reports on everything from ancestry composition to traits in genetic health risks”, according to its website.
23andMe said in a statement: “We recently learned that certain profile information – which a customer creates and chooses to share with their genetic relatives in the DNA Relatives feature – was accessed from individual 23andMe.com accounts without their authorization.
“We immediately started an investigation and do not have any indication at this time that there has been a data security incident within our systems, or that 23andMe was the source of the account credentials used in these attacks.
“Our investigation indicates the threat actor was able to access certain customer accounts in instances where users recycled login credentials – that is, usernames and passwords that were used on 23andMe.com were the same as those used on other websites that have been previously hacked.
“We have since notified customers and taken additional security measures, including requiring all accounts to go through a password reset and advising customers to enable multi-factor authentication. We are working with outside forensic experts as part of our ongoing investigation, as well as with federal law enforcement.
“Today we were made aware that the threat actor involved in this investigation posted what they claim to be additional customer DNA Relative profile information. We are currently reviewing the data to determine if it is legitimate.
“Our investigation is ongoing and if we learn that a customer’s data has been accessed without their authorization, we will notify them directly with more information.”