{"id":1351,"date":"2020-12-26T18:27:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-26T18:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/south-africa\/?p=1351"},"modified":"2020-12-26T17:32:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T17:32:15","slug":"biohackers-can-trick-dna-scientists-into-creating-deadly-viruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/biohackers-can-trick-dna-scientists-into-creating-deadly-viruses","title":{"rendered":"Biohackers can trick DNA scientists into creating deadly viruses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – South-Africa<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>New Delhi – In what may put the future potential Covid vaccine development at risk, researchers have spotted a new form of biohacking that can dupe DNA scientists into unknowingly creating deadly viruses.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the Israel-based Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, said that as DNA synthesis becomes more widespread, “concern is mounting that a cyberattack intervening with synthetic DNA orders could lead to the synthesis of nucleic acids encoding parts of pathogenic organisms or harmful proteins and toxins”.<\/p>\n

The research team said that it is no longer the case that a threat actor needs physical access to a “dangerous” substance to produce or deliver it and scientists could be duped into producing toxins or synthetic viruses on their behalf through targeted cyberattacks.<\/p>\n

“As cybersecurity becomes an increasing concern across all business sectors, the possible procurement of DNA for malicious purposes by hackers highlights the need for greater cyber-biosecurity, especially as cyber-bio attacks have been overlooked by the synthesis community and many academic laboratories lack the firewalls and cybersecurity infrastructure to ensure integrity of communication,” they elaborated.<\/p>\n

Most DNA synthesis providers check each requested sequence across databases of problematic sequences before order fulfillment.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, however, there are no comprehensive databases of pathogenic sequences, and the guidelines — unenforced outside of US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantees — are outdated,” the researchers lamented.<\/p>\n

Commercial DNA synthesisers sell billions of nucleotides to customers each year, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.<\/p>\n

Suspicious sequences require human inspection to verify safety and legitimacy.<\/p>\n

“Human follow-ups are, however, costly and time consuming. And, without a comprehensive penetration testing of the screening frameworks, some pathogenic sequences will fall through the oversight cracks,” the study noted.<\/p>\n

The threat is real.<\/p>\n

The researchers conducted a proof of concept — an obfuscated DNA encoding a toxic peptide was not detected by software implementing the screening guidelines.<\/p>\n

“The respective order was moved to production. Details are withheld, but IGSC (International Gene Synthesis Consortium) was notified about the threat and potential mitigation methods,” said the team from Ben-Gurion University.<\/p>\n

“The order was canceled for biosecurity reasons following our disclosure.”<\/p>\n

Cyber dangers are spilling over to the physical space, blurring the separation between the digital world and the real world, especially with increasing levels of automation in the biological lab.<\/p>\n

“Best practices and standards must be woven into operational biological protocols to combat these threats,” the researchers cautioned.<\/p>\n

–IANS<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. New Delhi – In what may put the future potential Covid vaccine development at risk, researchers have spotted a new form of biohacking that can dupe DNA scientists into unknowingly creating deadly viruses. Researchers from the Israel-based Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":1350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,8],"tags":[274,315,275],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"\nBiohackers can trick DNA scientists into creating deadly viruses - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"New Delhi - In what may put the future potential Covid vaccine development at risk, researchers have spotted a new form ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/biohackers-can-trick-dna-scientists-into-creating-deadly-viruses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biohackers can trick DNA scientists into creating deadly viruses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New Delhi - 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