DNA Data Storage Security: How to Detect a DNA Pool has been Copied

DNA data storage offers long-term, dense, and economical storage capabilities. As this technology evolves, addressing its security becomes crucial. In particular, due to its specificity, DNA storage is vulnerable to currently undetectable copy attacks where an adversary steals a portion of DNA strands from a pool. In this paper, we propose the first copy detection solution based on adding single-copy random reference DNA sequences to a DNA storage. Their presence or absence during readout indicates whether a copy attack has occurred. We establish the theoretical performance of our approach and validate it using a simulator we also developed, accounting for various biological process biases. Results show our system can detect copy attacks removing as little as 1 % of the DNA pool, even under significant biological constraints. The solution also provides traceability capabilities for DNA databases.