In a World’s First, Scientists Successfully Hack a Computer Using Malware Encoded DNA

August 10, 2017  By Rafia Shaikh
 
http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/dna-hack-740x463.jpgWhen the crazy worlds of biology and hacking meet
 
Mad scientists have successfully infected a computer with a malicious program coded in a DNA strand. You might ask, “uh, why’d you do that?!” The developers argue that an attacker could use it to hack any computer in the DNA sequencing pipeline. What is a DNA sequencing pipeline?
 
DNA sequencing pipeline includes any facility that accepts DNA samples for computer-based gene sequencing and processing, and an attacker could tamper with forensic evidence (and do much much more) if they are able to inject malicious DNA. “We analyzed the computer security practices of commonly used, open-source programs in this pipeline and found that they did not follow computer security best practices,” the research team writes. “Many were written in programming languages known to routinely contain security problems, and we found early indicators of security problems and vulnerable code.”
 
Full Article.