Is the Next Hacking Frontier Being Developed in California?

Unless you work in the field, it’s easy to forget that all around California, scientists are working to solve the universe’s toughest puzzles, or hurtling toward world-changing discoveries.

Recently, I talked to a team of researchers at University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Riverside, who managed to make a finding that could be world-changing — and it’s kind of terrifying.

It’s possible to record the subtle sounds of a DNA synthesis machine working in a lab and then reverse-engineer whatever genetic materials the machine is making.

In other words, it’s possible to hack such a machine by, in effect, listening to it.

The idea for the project, said Mohammad Al Faruque, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UCI, stemmed from his previous work stealing blueprints for things printed by a 3D printer.

“If you can eavesdrop on a machine, you can understand what it’s making,” he said. “And with the 3D printer, we demonstrated that.”

But if what you’re stealing is a genetic blueprint, the stakes are much higher. It could be health information or pharmaceuticals — or the recipe for a biological weapon.

Philip Brisk, a UC Riverside associate professor of computer science and engineering, said that because Microsoft was working on DNA data storage, the finding could have implications for information security.

And William Grover, a UC Riverside assistant professor of bioengineering, said that while not everybody has a 3D printer or a DNA synthesizer, lots of people have Alexas or Google Homes.

“Everybody makes noises in their day-to-day business, which can be vulnerable to side-channel attacks,” he said. And medical machines like the ones in health care offices also make noise.

Still, before you get the urge to wrap your house in tinfoil, team members said the research was encouraging.

First, Al Faruque said, as engineering as a discipline undergoes “a paradigm shift,” research is the result of a new kind of collaboration that will be necessary to solve increasingly multifaceted problems. The team, for example, needed bioengineering experts as well as computer engineers.

“We had the right grouping of players,” he said.

Second, doing research that highlights vulnerabilities makes it possible to design products with solutions in mind.

Brisk said that right now, cost is often the top priority in designing labs and products. But this kind of research, he said, forces designers and engineers to pay attention to security, too.

“You could optimize so that there’s less information bouncing around,” he said. “I’m sure the right type of engineering expertise exists somewhere.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.