*By Conor White*
Though the email addresses and passwords of more than 90 million customers were exposed in a data breach, the DNA-testing service MyHeritage tried to assure its users their personal information is still safe.
"It's important to remember none of the genetic data was compromised," said Rob Verger, the assistant tech editor at Popular Science. "But it is a reminder that almost everything is hackable."
The leak of more than 90 million emails and encrypted passwords to a private service occurred last October, but a security researcher did not inform MyHeritage of the breach until 7 months later, on June 4. The company said it has no reason to believe the hack was carried out by malicious actors, but it doesn't know for sure.
Verger said companies like MyHeritage take additional steps to protect their clients' highly-personal genetic information.
"I reached out to some other companies to kind of ask them about their security practices in this arena, and a lot of them say that things like user data that is personally identifiable is kept on a separate system from the genetic data," he said.
In a [statement](https://blog.myheritage.com/2018/06/cybersecurity-incident-june-5-6-update/), MyHeritage said it would inform each individual user affected by the hack, and fortify security with a two-step verification process.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/myheritage-reveals-data-breach).
Former Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers learned all about technology’s volatile highs and lows as a veteran of the internet’s early boom days during the late 1990s and the ensuing meltdown that followed the mania. And now he is seeing potential signs of the cycle repeating with another transformative technology in artificial intelligence. Chambers is trying take some of the lessons he learned while riding a wave that turned Cisco into the world's most valuable company in 2000 before a crash hammered its stock price and apply them as an investor in AI startups. He recently discussed AI's promise and perils during an interview with The Associated Press.
Tesla reported a surprise increase in sales in the third quarter as the electric car maker likely benefited from a rush by consumers to take advantage of a $7,500 credit before it expired on Sept. 30. The company reported Thursday that sales in the three months through September rose 7% compared to the same period a year ago. The gain follows two quarters of steep declines as people turned off by CEO Elon Musk’s foray into right-wing politics avoided buying his company’s cars and even protested at some dealerships. Sales rose to 497,099 vehicles, compared with 462,890 in the same period last year.
OpenAI could now be the world’s most valuable startup, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and TikTok parent company ByteDance, after a secondary stock sale designed to retain employees at the ChatGPT maker. Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company’s valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI’s remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015.
Tom’s Guide Editor-in-Chief Mark Spoonauer breaks down Apple & Amazon's latest product drops—what's hot, what's hype, and what really matters for users.
Police in Northern California pulled over a self-driving Waymo taxi after it made an illegal U-turn. But without a driver behind the wheel, they could not issue a moving violation ticket.
With satellites already in orbit, defense contractor L3Harris is standing by to accelerate Trump's executive order. We take an inside look at the technology
Electronic Arts, the video game maker of “Madden NFL,” “The Sims,” and other popular titles, is being acquired and taken private for about $52.5 billion in what could become the largest-ever buyout funded by private-equity firms.
YouTube will offer creators a way to rejoin the streaming platform if they were banned for violating COVID-19 and election misinformation policies that are no longer in effect.
