The Biological-Digital Bridge (BDB)

Possible, probable, impossible, hypothetical, conspiracy, aliens, or a moot debate... Mapping the human genome completed in 2003 and today scientists within the realm of Genetic Engineering manipulate the DNA sequence of cells, usually with the aim of expressing a protein . Software is an integral part of this technology, allowing DNA sequences to be read, manipulated (written), cataloged and processed.

Possible, probable, impossible, hypothetical, conspiracy, aliens, or a moot debate... Mapping the human genome completed in 2003 and today scientists within the realm of Genetic Engineering manipulate the DNA sequence of cells, usually with the aim of expressing a protein . Software is an integral part of this technology, allowing DNA sequences to be read, manipulated (written), cataloged and processed.

Everyone involved in the security industry understands to go after the inputs with the aim of taking control of the system's functionality and hence, the output. What if the input comes from the DNA sequence and we automatically assume that it has been sanitized by evolution? Like any program, DNA analysis software is potentially vulnerable to buffer overflows, code injection attacks, etc. The DNA sequence could compromise the analysis software.

If it is compromised in this manner, then what? These machines are linked to networks, that are linked to other networks, with machines, that have software to manipulate DNA. If the DNA manipulation software is then compromised, the DNA overflow sequence can be written to more DNA (maybe in the junk DNA) and replicated through the biological machinery, completing the cycle.

There can be full cycle from replicating biological data (biological viruses/standard DNA replication) to replicating digital data (computer viruses) and back again. So, there is a bridge from the biological to digital and from the digital to the biological which is possible, probable, impossible, hypothetical, conspiracy, aliens, or a moot debate....