Security in the Metaverse

Overview

While the concept of the Metaverse can be traced as far back as 1992, with recent developments in VR and AR technologies and increased corporate interest, it appears as if its inception is right around the corner. The promise to bring many aspects of the real world such as workspaces, commerce, and entertainment to a digital environment certainly piques the interest of many communities around the globe. As the enthusiasm for the Metaverse rises, so do privacy and safety concerns. Without a centralized governing body and enforced regulations, ways to overcome security challenges are still not set in stone.

Problems and Challenges

Identity and authenticity

Identity theft is arguably the most significant challenge facing the Metaverse at the moment. Even in today's version of the Internet, the validation of digital identity is complicated. Through multiple types of social engineering practices such as phishing, smishing, and impersonation hackers are often using psychological manipulation techniques to trick people into revealing their confidential information. Cryptographic schemes such as digital signatures will be employed to combat these issues. Digital signatures are mathematical procedures for verifying the authenticity of digital messages such as emails, credit card transactions, documents, etc. They are equivalent to handwritten signatures in many ways, but with proper implementation, they should be even more difficult to forge than the written types. Another susceptible feature of the Metaverse is the use of avatars. The individuality of Users' unique avatars should be retained while traversing the Metaverse. Because the Metaverse runs on blockchain technology, its decentralized and unregulated nature makes stolen asset recovery impossible. Therefore it's crucial that evolved verification technologies also arrive alongside its launch.

Hardware

Two types of technologies offering the UI to Metaverse users are VR and AR devices. From an innovation standpoint, recent developments in these two technologies have been rather exciting. Besides the challenges associated with securing the hardware from direct attacks, there are questions regarding data gathering and distribution to 3rd party companies. It is unclear where device manufacturers are going to store data, what encryption methods they are going to follow, and whether or not are going to share it with other parties and for what reasons. VR devices can obtain biometric data such as fingerprints, voiceprints, and retinal scans, in the future these can expand to monitoring other biometric functions such as heart rate, respiration rate, pulse oximetry, etc.

Potential health risks

Potential health risks associated with using VR technology are still a subject of research. Symptoms often associated with motion sickness such as nausea, sweating, dizziness, loss of balance, etc., have been linked with prolonged exposure to head-mounted gaming VR displays. Although some specialists argue, that VR motion sickness is a minor issue, that gets sorted out as the user gets used to the device. Apart from the obvious perception reduction of users' surroundings, Getting immersed in the virtual world could also carry psychological risks associated with disconnection from the real world.

Besides the technical and medical challenges facing the Metaverse, there are also political and social issues that could accompany its inception. Cyberbullying and toxic environments are already big issues in today's social media platforms. The Metaverse could also expand opportunities for radical political groups to spread propaganda, communicate with each other, organize crimes, etc. Terrorist organizations have already been actively using the Internet for recruitment and communication. The unregulated nature of the Metaverse could amplify the impact of these issues and expand opportunities for radicals to utilize the internet for their agendas.

Conclusion

Considering all these factors, there is a lot of work to be done to secure Metaverse from the very beginning. Innovations are always accompanied by such challenges. Potential intervention attempts from governments around the world are also expected and remain to be seen.