When Biologists started synthesizing and editing DNA, it was intended to alleviate genetic diseases. However, a group of biologists has found a different threat in our DNA, and that is the threat of a Computer Virus.



Image from flickr, by the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. Source

In a paper presented at the 2017 USENIX Security Symposium, a group of scientists from the University of Washington explained how they exploited a gene-sequencing computer using a strand of synthesized DNA.

How They Did it

When gene-sequencing computers process DNA, they convert the 4 nucleotides of DNA (A, T, G, and C) into a stream of bits and this is done in a static buffer. This was quickly found to be a vulnerability in the software. It allowed the scientists to exploit the computer with a common "buffer overflow" attack, all they had to do was use a DNA that was too large for the buffer, this means that extra code from the DNA would overflow into other regions of the computer where it would execute commands encoded by the scientists when they synthesized the DNA. The coding was done by having each base represent a binary pair (A = 00, C = 01, G = 10 and T = 11).

"Mad Scientists at it Again"

While I was researching this, I found a few people putting this under the category of "mad science" and that we shouldn't give criminals more ideas. This is completely ridiculous, science is the study of everything and everything can be used for good and bad. Ultimately, the goal of this study was to show that it is possible to hack gene-sequencing software and demonstrate to the companies that create the software that they need to jack up the security of their software. It is quite obviously so much better this way, where we are alert to the possibilities.

DNA computer hacking is a problem that is still decades away, and thanks to the research by these scientists, we found the possibilities of this threat very early. So don't worry, we certainly won't ever see a world plagued by DNA computer hackers ... unless we get to see it in a sci-fi movie!

Thanks for reading!

References:

Computer Security and Privacy in DNA Sequencing

Biohackers Have Encoded A Computer Virus Into A Strand Of DNA

Biohackers Encoded Malware in a Strand of DNA