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.
Tamer et al. (Thu,) studied this question.