The Unseen Threat: DNA as Malware

The Next Major Cyber Risk Could Come Through a Biological Sample Maryam Shoraka • December 10, 2025

A new class of cyberthreat is emerging - one that bypasses firewalls and evades endpoint security. Instead, it enters organizations through biological samples.

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In my years in cybersecurity, I have witnessed threat vectors evolve far beyond what we once thought possible. We defended networks, endpoints and cloud stacks. Now we must look at living systems. Researchers at the University of Washington demonstrated that it is feasible to encode executable payloads into synthetic DNA that, once sequenced and processed, could trigger malware in sequencing software. This convergence of biology and cyberthreats is not science fiction. It is real and demands urgent attention globally.

Why DNA Malware Matters for Business

DNA is an information medium. When sequencers convert biological samples into digital data, that ...