Hackers have used all sorts of attack vectors to gain control of someone else’s computer, from USB drives to phishy emails. In what appears to be the first successful hack of a software program using DNA, researchers say malware they incorporated into a genetic molecule allowed them to take control of a computer used to analyse it.
Akin to something from the pages of science fiction, the researchers used the life-encoding molecule to attack and take over a computer, using strands of DNA to transmit a computer virus from the biological to the digital realm.
The researchers used the four bases in DNA, adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine – A, C, G and T – to encode their malware, which when read by a piece of DNA sequencing equipment converted the molecular code into computer code capable of taking over the computer connected to the DNA sequencer.
“When this physical strand was sequenced and processed by the vulnerable program it gave remote control of the computer doing the processing. That is, we were able to remotely exploit and gain full control over a computer using adversarial synthetic DNA.” said the researchers.
The researchers say that there is no reason for concern: “Note that there is not present cause for alarm about present-day threats. We have no evidence to believe that the security of DNA sequencing or DNA data in general is currently under attack.” They argue the attack could be leveled against any facility that accepts DNA samples for computer-based gene sequencing and processing. For example, if an attacker knew DNA samples will be sequenced on a computer they contaminate blood and saliva samples with a specially crafted synthetic gene.
The results show that it is technically possible to use DNA as a way to transfer malware and attack vulnerabilities in the sequencing compute program.
No comments:
Post a Comment