Sizing Up Synthetic DNA Hacking Risks

guest · Nov 30, 2020

Sizing Up Synthetic DNA Hacking Risks
Study Describes How a Supply Chain Attack Might Work
November 30, 2020
https://www.databreachtoday.com/sizing-up-synthetic-dna-hacking-risks-a-15477

Could hackers inject malicious code that compromises the synthetic DNA supply chain and ultimately tricks bioengineers into inadvertently developing dangerous viruses or toxins? A new research report says that's a growing concern and calls for robust security measures.

The study - Cyberbiosecurity: Remote DNA Injection Threat in Synthetic Biology - by security researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel sizes up the cyberthreats facing the emerging synthetic bioengineering segment of the healthcare sector.

"It is currently believed that a criminal needs to have physical contact with a dangerous substance to produce and deliver it," the Ben-Gurion University report states. "However, malware could easily replace a short sub-string of the DNA on a bioengineer's computer so that they unintentionally create a toxin-producing sequence."
"Currently, the software stack used to develop synthetic genes is loosely secured, allowing the injection of rogue genetic information into biological systems by a cybercriminal with an electronic foothold within an organization's premises," the researchers write.
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Security Controls Needed
Because of the many dangers of synthetic biology, rigorous security controls are required, the researchers write.
Remote DNA Injection Attack
In their study, the Ben-Gurion researchers focus on a potential cyberattack involving "remote DNA injection" that exploits several vulnerabilities. Those include "insufficient integrity controls" at the software level, weakness of the HHS guidelines at the biosecurity level and other factors.
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Study: "Cyberbiosecurity: Remote DNA Injection Threat in Synthetic Biology"
(PDF): https://dd80b675424c132b90b3-e48385e382d2e5d17821a5e1d8e4c86b.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/external/ben-gurion-bioengineering-cyberthreat-study-11-30-20.pdf

A weakness in the design of the Screening Frame-work Guidance for Providers of Synthetic Double-Stranded DNA and its successor, the Harmonized Screening Protocol v2.0 enables these protocols to be circumvented using a generic obfuscation procedure.
Insufficient cybersecurity mechanisms throughout the synthetic gene engineering pipeline allow a remote attacker to interfere with biological processes.

Together, these weaknesses facilitate an end-to-end cyberbiological attack, in which a remote attacker may inject obfuscated pathogenic DNA into an online order of synthetic genes, using a malicious browser plugin.
The end-to-end attack scenario stresses the need to harden the synthetic DNA supply chain with protections against cyber-biosecurity threats.
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