New study reveals cybersecurity threats in next-gen DNA sequencing

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust A hot potato: Next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) faces mounting scrutiny over its cyber vulnerabilities. While NGS has revolutionized fields ranging from cancer diagnostics to infectious disease tracking, a new study warns that the systems enabling these advances could also be exploited as a gateway for hackers and malicious actors. The research, published in IEEE Access and led by Dr. Nasreen Anjum of the University of Portsmouth's School of Computing, is the first to systematically map cyber-biosecurity threats across the entire NGS workflow. NGS technology, which allows for rapid and cost-effective sequencing of DNA and RNA, underpins not only cancer research and drug development but also agricultural innovation and forensic science. Its ability to process millions to billions of DNA fragments simultaneously has dramatically lowered the cost and increased the speed of genome analysi ... Read full article.