Based on the reading for this week, One of the security vulnerabilities in DNA analysis software is the ability to induce basic buffer overflow attacks and this causes digital applications to run useless code. This was possible since the DNA code was able to get access to the shell command, and since this is able to get access and use the shell someone could send malicious DNA code as a way to send a virus or malware to a poorly secured computer.

What the researchers would do in the future is treat all input as a danger and run the DNA analysis software inside of a Virtual Machine (VM) or container as to contain the damage of an exploit. The reason for this is because if you were to run this application onto a main computer with vital information then the damage could prevent the ability to access the vital information. With the use of a Virtual Machine or container this can be prevented since the damage could not reach the main computer with the vital Information.

If we were to treat all biological data input as untrusted input a lot of machines would be protected, but It could hurt other humans. On the security side of this argument if all input is untrusted then more machines would be protected from computer attacks and viruses from hackers who use DNA code. This way of thinking could save companies money by not having to pay someone to either scrub a computer clean or buy a new one. This thought process of isolating the DNA on a VM or not even processing it since it is untrustworthy could cause the person who is trying to get cured from a sickness they may have would take longer to get diagnosed. This could cause other humans to be harmed due to the overly cautious nature of seeing all biological data as untrustworthy, thus it would be unethical to see all biological data as untrustworthy since people would have less medical treatment.