Synthetic biology has the potential to positively transform society in many application areas, including medicine. In common with all revolutionary new technologies, synthetic biology can also enable crime. Like cybercrime, that emerged following the advent of the internet, biocrime can have a significant effect on society, but may also impact on peoples' health. For example, the scale of harm caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic illustrates the potential impact of future biocrime and highlights the need for prevention strategies. Systematic evidence quantifying the crime opportunities posed by synthetic biology has to date been very limited. Here, we systematically reviewed forms of crime that could be facilitated by synthetic biology with a view to informing their prevention. A total of 794 articles from four databases were extracted and a three-step screening phase resulted in 15 studies that met our threshold criterion for thematic synthesis. Within those studies, 13 exploits were identified. Of these, 46% were dependent on technologies characteristic of synthetic biology. Eight potential crime types emerged from the studies: bio-discrimination, cyber-biocrime, bio-malware, biohacking, at-home drug manufacturing, illegal gene editing, genetic blackmail, and neuro-hacking. 14 offender types were identified. For the most commonly identified offenders (>3 mentions) 40% were outsider threats. These observations suggest that synthetic biology presents substantial new offending opportunities. Moreover, that more effective engagement, such as ethical hacking, is needed now to prevent a crime harvest from developing in the future. A framework to address the synthetic biology crime landscape is proposed.

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对合成生物学的犯罪潜力和未来预防犯罪途径的系统评价

合成生物学具有在包括医学在内的许多应用领域积极改变社会的潜力。与所有革命性的新技术一样，合成生物学也可以助长犯罪。与互联网出现后出现的网络犯罪一样，生物犯罪可以对社会产生重大影响，但也可能影响人们的健康。例如，SARS-CoV-2 大流行造成的危害规模说明了未来生物犯罪的潜在影响，并强调了预防策略的必要性。迄今为止，量化合成生物学带来的犯罪机会的系统证据非常有限。在这里，我们系统地审查了合成生物学可以促进的犯罪形式，以便为预防提供信息。总共从四个数据库中提取了 794 篇文章，经过三步筛选阶段，15 项研究符合我们的主题综合阈值标准。在这些研究中，确定了 13 个漏洞。其中，46% 依赖于合成生物学的技术特征。研究中出现了八种潜在的犯罪类型：生物歧视、网络生物犯罪、生物恶意软件、生物黑客、家庭药物制造、非法基因编辑、基因敲诈和神经黑客。确定了 14 种罪犯类型。对于最常见的犯罪者（> 3 次提及），40% 是外部威胁。这些观察结果表明合成生物学提供了大量新的冒犯机会。此外，更有效的参与，例如道德黑客，现在需要防止犯罪收获在未来发展。提出了一个解决合成生物学犯罪领域的框架。