Important: Account security alert and instructions for securing your account

Dear {NAME}, As one of our registered users, we bring to your attention that on June 4, 2018, at 1pm EST we became aware of a data breach involving 92.3 million email addresses of MyHeritage users, and their hashed passwords (these are not actual passwords). We learned about the breach when MyHeritage’s Chief Information Security Officer received a message from a security researcher that he had found a file named myheritage containing email addresses and hashed passwords, on a private server outside of MyHeritage. Our Information Security Team received the file from the security researcher, reviewed it, and confirmed that its contents originated from MyHeritage and included all the email addresses of users who signed up to MyHeritage up to October 26, 2017, and their hashed passwords. We made a [public announcement]( about the breach within 8 hours of learning about it. Your email address was one of the accounts in the data breach. Immediately upon receipt of the file, MyHeritage’s Information Security Team analyzed the file and began an investigation to determine how its contents were obtained and to identify any potential exploitation of the MyHeritage system. We determined that the file was legitimate and included the email addresses and hashed passwords of 92,283,889 users who had signed up to MyHeritage up to and including Oct 26, 2017 which is the date of the breach. MyHeritage does not store user passwords, but rather a one-way hash of each password, in which the hash key differs for each customer. This means that anyone gaining access to the hashed passwords does not have the actual passwords. The security researcher reported that no other data related to MyHeritage was found on the private server. There has been no evidence that the data in the file was ever used by the perpetrators. Since Oct 26, 2017 (the date of the breach) and the present we have not seen any activity indicating that any MyHeritage accounts had been compromised. We believe the intrusion is limited to the user email addresses. We have no reason to believe that any other MyHeritage systems were compromised. As an example, credit card information is not stored on MyHeritage to begin with, but only on trusted third-party billing providers (e.g. BlueSnap, PayPal) utilized by MyHeritage. Other types of sensitive data such as family trees and DNA data are stored by MyHeritage on segregated systems, separate from those that store the email addresses, and they include added layers of security. We have no reason to believe those systems have been compromised. Steps We’ve Taken - Immediately upon learning about the incident, we set up an Information Security Incident Response Team to investigate the incident. We have engaged a leading, independent cybersecurity firm to conduct comprehensive forensic reviews to determine the scope of the intrusion; and to conduct an assessment and provide recommendations on steps that can be taken to help prevent such an incident from occurring in the future. - We have notified relevant authorities as per GDPR. - We set up a 24/7 security customer support team to assist customers who have concerns or questions about the incident. - We expired all passwords on MyHeritage, requiring our users to set a new password. You can read more about this in the [follow up announcement]( we issued on June 5, 2018. - We added support for Two-Factor Authentication. What You Should Do - Change your password on MyHeritage. Visit the MyHeritage website and log in. You will be prompted to set a new password. If you are not prompted, change your password as described in [our FAQ article](. If you are using our mobile app or the Family Tree Builder genealogy software, first change the password on the website and then set the same new password on the mobile app and/or Family Tree Builder. Changing your password is a prudent and recommended practice. After doing this, you’ll be safer, because even if someone else has your password they will not be able to access your MyHeritage account from now on. For maximum security, change passwords often and avoid using the same password on different services and websites, so if your password is ever compromised on one of them it will not be used to access the others. - Add Two-Factor Authentication (optional). Two-Factor Authentication is an extra layer of security for your account, designed to ensure that you’re the only person who can access your account, even if someone knows your password. Two-Factor Authentication allows you to authenticate yourself using a mobile phone in addition to a password, which further hardens your MyHeritage account against illegitimate access, because others don’t have access to your mobile phone. For more details, see our [blog post](. For now, there are no other actions that you need to take as a result of this incident. Customer Support If you have questions or concerns, you can contact our security customer support team via email on privacy@myheritage.com or by phone via the toll-free number (USA) +1 888 672 2875, available 24/7 in English. For our customer support phone numbers in other countries, see our [Contact Page]( and when calling, pick option 5 in the menu (privacy). If asked by our staff, note that your account ID on MyHeritage is 617463261. Going Forward As always, your privacy and the security of your data are our highest priority. We continually assess our procedures and policies and seek new ways to improve our approach to security. We understand the importance of our role as custodians of your information and work every day to earn your trust. Thank you for your understanding. The MyHeritage Team You have received this email to facilitate your use of MyHeritage. If you no longer wish to receive emails of this type, [click here](. © 2018 MyHeritage (USA) Inc., 2975 Executive Parkway, Suite 310, Lehi, UT 84043, USA