Information Biosecurity: context
Preventing bioterrorism requires innovative solutionsspecific to the nature of the threat. Biotechnology is not like nuclear technology. Soon, tens of thousands of laboratories worldwide will be operating in a multi-billion-dollar industry. Even students working in small laboratories will be able to carry out gene manipulation. The approach to fighting the abuse of biotechnology for terrorist purposes will have more in common withmeasures against cybercrime than with the work to control nuclear proliferation.
Kofi Annan (2006)
Life sciences digitization and laboratory automation are the enabling factors of the synthetic biology paradigm shift — that is, organisms can now be modified from the inside — . This project shows how both have set the stage for new biothreats based on manipulations of the bio-data and algorithms we now rely on.
Actions to secure the digital dimension of the emerging biothreat:
- defining reference bio data repositories and tools as a critical infrastructure
- outlining technical needs for greater biodata integrity
- digital microbial forensics, a way to achieve earlier biothreat detection by tracking online activities to detect an attack in the intent and design stages.