DNA-Based Computer Viruses

Thoughts on a recent experimental cyber attack that began with a strand of DNA

I just finished reading an article that was both fascinating and unfortunately, incredibly disturbing. It described a recent experiment which proved that not only can humans be infected by the same type of electronic viruses that destroy computer systems, but that the equation can be reversed. Yes, you read that correctly - it is also possible to infect machines with biological agents.

Coincidentally, I wrote about a somewhat tangential topic a couple weeks ago in which I discussed the striking similarities between biological and electronic viruses. The primary theme of that article was that while everything in the universe may express different phenotypes, in the end, we are all made of the same code, which is 1’s and 0’s. We all derive from a common binary genotype.

When I get a call from a client whose computer has been infected with a virus, regardless of how they choose to describe it, I simply think of the problem first at the highest level of abstraction. The situation then becomes reduced to a sequence of binary numbers that have infected another group of similar numbers - meaning they only appear to be different because of their expression. If grouped together in the same context, they are all part of the same universal computer.

To prove this concept, a team of researchers recently created a biological virus containing, as all "life" does, a sequence of the genetic code composed of the four bases found in DNA. Embedded in this sequence was a specific arrangement of nucleotides that, when mapped to 1’s and 0’s based on each one representing a binary pair, coded for an executable virus capable of initiating a buffer overflow attack. At that point, the only question that remains is how to package the threat vector.

This experiment lends serious credibility to the theory that binary digits, not carbon, is the foundation of what it means to be "alive". Second, as an extension, it causes one to ponder the existence of a universal computer - one with no beginning and no end, and more important, capable of creating anything by following the simple laws of computable numbers. But ultimately, instead of being viewed as positive, like everything, we will embrace our misguided misery and create weapons like nothing else ever witnessed.

In other words, within a decade, we will start seeing electronically engineered viruses infecting the population, and vice versa. But instead of having to be created in a lab, it could be written on any computer. Yet, even as startling as that reality may seem, I think the yin to that yang is much worse. Imagine having the power to infect millions of computer systems simply through the air we breathe? How about transmitting data over the web to a smart watch that codes for an electronic virus, but upon penetration of the target system, is transcribed into a biological one that contains translation instructions for the Ebola virus?

The distinction between humans and electronic devices continues to blur with each passing day. Not only are we composed of the same code, but of code that makes no distinction between what it means to be alive or electronic.

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Michael Arleigh Richardson

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Technology expert focused on cybersecurity, privacy, identity theft, and cyber risk.

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