The Silicon-Carbon Interface: Decoding DNA-Based Cyber Attacks

This research explores a novel attack vector in the domain of cyberbiosecurity, specifically focusing on the exploitation of DNA sequencing software. We present a technical deep-dive into the vulnerability CVE-2019-11371 within the Burrows-Wheeler Aligner (BWA), demonstrating how synthesized DNA strands can be engineered as biological "payloads" to trigger stack-based buffer overflows. The study covers: Binary-to-DNA Encoding: A mechanism for mapping malicious shellcode into nucleotide sequences (A, C, T, G). Exploit Architecture: Engineering NOP sleds and bimodal encoding to bypass digital and biological screening. Forensic Detection: A proposed defensive framework utilizing Shannon Entropy analysis and sliding-window algorithms to detect non-biological informational signatures in FASTQ/SAM files. This work serves as a proactive threat model for the pharmaceutical industry and genomic research facilities, emphasizing the necessity for secure coding practices in bioinformatics pipelines to prevent remote code execution (RCE) via biological substrates.