Monitoring Crime in the Metaverse
The world is a dangerous place. Even in the land of virtual reality.
(Excerpts from WEF article follow. Link to full piece below.)
At its most basic, the metaverse describes the concept of a shared, persistent virtual space for meetings, games and socializing. Gartner estimates that 25% of people will spend at least one hour per day in the Metaverse by 2026.
Powered by innovations in virtual reality, AI, digital currencies, NFTs and blockchain, the proponents of the metaverse see us moving across different and interoperable virtual worlds, taking our avatars and digital assets with us.
Regardless of what the underlying infrastructure will look like, the metaverse will be a myriad of technologies coming together as building blocks, and each of these brings with it its own risks. Security problems that already exist — scams, impersonation, credential theft, technological debt, social engineering, espionage, vulnerabilities,
misinformation, to name a few — will follow us into the metaverse. They could even be more damaging.
As digital commerce in the metaverse grows in scope and scale — by some estimates up to $1 trillion in yearly revenues — financially motivated attacks will grow in frequency and aggression.
People are already being duped by phishing scams peddling fraudulent NFTs, metaverse land sales and other dubious Web 3.0 projects. A recent phishing scam impersonated Decentraland, a popular Ethereum-based virtual world, an
d tricked users into inputting their private wallet keys, allowing the scammers to steal users’ cryptocurrency.
Trolling, and sexual and racial harassment are problems right now on all digital and virtual reality gaming platforms. This kind of behaviour has a long history in digital spaces — but the immersiveness of VR means it can be devastating to a victim’s psychological well-being. According to Common Sense Media, the risks for children are especially high. Children are likely to explore the metaverse before their parents, potentially exposing them to sexual and violent content without their caregivers’ knowledge.
Organisations working in the metaverse must collaborate with their security and risk teams early on to identify what could be at stake and where possible vulnerabilities are. They must also adequately train their developers in these risks, and test apps thoroughly before they go live.
Read the full story here (published by the World Economic Forum).
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