Israeli Researchers Discovered Cyber-Biological Vulnerability

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Israeli researchers have discovered a cyber-biological attack that could trick biologists into generating dangerous toxins in their labs. 

It is currently believed that a criminal needs to have physical contact with a dangerous substance to produce and deliver it. 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.

The end-to-end cyber-biological attack has been discovered by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev cyber-researchers. The DNA injection attack demonstrates a significant new threat of malicious code altering biological processes. 

“To regulate both intentional and unintentional generation of dangerous substances, most synthetic gene providers screen DNA orders, which is currently the most effective line of defense against such attacks,” says Rami Puzis, head of the BGU Complex Networks Analysis Lab, a member of the Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering. California was the first state in 2020 to introduce gene purchase regulation legislation.

“However, outside the state, bioterrorists can buy dangerous DNA, from companies that do not screen the orders,” Puzis says. “Unfortunately, the screening guidelines have not been adapted to reflect recent developments in synthetic biology and cyberwarfare.”

A weakness in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) guidance for DNA providers allows screening protocols to be circumvented using a procedure which makes it difficult for the screening software to detect the toxin-producing DNA. “Using this technique, our experiments revealed that that 16 out of 50 obfuscated DNA samples were not detected when screened according to the ‘best-match’ HHS guidelines,” Puzis says.

The researchers also found that accessibility and automation of the synthetic gene engineering workflow, combined with insufficient cybersecurity controls, allow malware to interfere with biological processes within the victim’s lab, closing the loop with the possibility of an exploit written into a DNA molecule, according to phys.org.

“This attack scenario underscores the need to harden the synthetic DNA supply chain with protections against cyber-biological threats,” Puzis says. “To address these threats, we propose an improved screening algorithm that takes into account in vivo gene editing.”

The paper was published in Nature Biotechnology.