The company that owns GEDmatch, the DNA analysis site that police in California used to catch the so-called Golden State Killer, said hackers attacked their database and exposed users' DNA profile data to law enforcement searches.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Verogen said they took down their website after being hit by two security breaches on July 19 and July 20.
The company stated that GEDmatch profiles were exposed to law enforcement agencies in an “orchestrated through a sophisticated attack on one of our servers via an existing user account."
"As a result of this breach, all user permissions were reset, making all profiles visible to all users," the company said in the statement. "This was the case for approximately 3 hours. During this time, users who did not opt-in for law enforcement matching were available for law enforcement matching, and, conversely, all law enforcement profiles were made visible to GEDmatch users."
GEDmatch rose to face in 2018 when their site was used by law enforcement to match the DNA to nab Joseph James DeAngelo, who's also known as the Golden State Killer.
DeAngelo pled guilty to 13 murders back in June, CBS News reported.
The company says the site should be back up and running by Saturday.
