@tiffintech: A DNA sequencer reads biology and writes binary. Researchers found a gap in that translation. A team at the University of Washington encoded a small program into a synthetic strand of DNA. When the resulting file was processed by sequencing analysis software, it triggered a buffer overflow, the same kind of bug that’s been used to hack regular computers for decades. They deliberately weakened the software to prove the concept worked. When they checked 13 real bioinformatics programs used in labs today, they found 11 times more vulnerabilities than in standard software. The real story here isn’t the hack. It’s that biology and computer code can now talk to each other at all, the same shift that’s letting scientists store data in DNA and design drugs on a laptop. Sources below 👇 Sources: IEEE Spectrum, “Researchers Embed Malware Into DNA to Hack DNA Sequencing Software” spectrum.ieee.org The Register, “‘Adversarial DNA’ breeds buffer overflow bugs in PCs” theregister.com

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Saturday 11 July 2026 19:22:59 GMT