As there is a surge in the adoption of Metaverse, the cyberattack surface has increased the tremendously.
Every Metaverse ecosystem will have multiple Internet of Things (IoT) devices, hardware, and applications integrated into the IT infrastructure to ensure seamless operations. These applications and hardware will gather, process, and execute a tremendous amount of sensitive user data about their behavior in real-time. It will expose the user to various sophisticated threats that can have disruptive impacts on their business. Enterprises that are exploring opportunities to integrate Metaverse in their operations need to be aware of all the potential threats that it is exposing its business network to before embarking on the implementation journey.
Following are a few Metaverse security threats that SecOps need to consider:
Darkverse
Similar to the dark web exists the Darkverse; the only difference is the channel of execution. Darkverse is an application Metaverse that business leaders need to be aware of. Because this Darkverse can be more devastating due to its pseudo-physical presence of users. It enacts as a perfect hoax that cybercriminals can leverage to mimic physical meetings. In comparison, the Darkweb is just an online open discussion thread that criminals leverage as a forum. Just like how the cybercriminal-as-a-service industry is growing exponentially, the criminals will also leverage all the attack surface areas of the enterprise Metaverse structure to infiltrate the system and move laterally into the network. CISOs before integrating Metaverse into their operations need to look out for the security implications imposed by Darkverse on their business to make strategic decisions.
Financial fraud
Cybercriminals around the globe have started exploring the opportunities that they can leverage Metaverse because of its capabilities to execute a large number of financial transactions. SecOps teams need to evaluate the entire financial operations to understand all the potential financial risks exposed by Metaverse. Many enterprises that have integrated this technology have utilized it to store their digital assets. Understanding the cybersecurity risks of each digital asset and developing a strategy based on it will help organizations to stay secure from these threats and financial frauds.
Privacy concerns
One of the most significant threats to embracing Metaverse on a large scale is that it will impose privacy issues on enterprises and their sensitive data.
The publishers in the Meta spaces will have the majority of the controls that they can leverage to gather large amounts of data and monetize it to make the most out of it. Many enterprises are exploring opportunities to leverage Metaverse open-source build-on open-source technologies. Such enterprises need to be aware that the publisher that hosts the code might have the capabilities to gather and monetize the user data. SecOps teams need to consider this as one of the most crucial threats to the integration of this technology into the IT infrastructure.
Social engineering
Cybercriminals leverage social engineering as psychological manipulation to provoke users into committing security mistakes or giving away sensitive data themselves. For instance, these cybercriminals’ can leverage deep fakes to execute to infiltrate a metaverse to impersonate enterprises, vendors, officials, users, etc.
Also Read: Integrating AI into the Cyber Security Tech Stack to Enhance Resilience
Traditional IT attacks
Enterprise metaverse ecosystems that execute on regular IT infrastructure are more susceptible to these IT attacks. The present IT threat scenarios like distributed denial of service (DDoS), API attacks, ransomware, etc., might happen in the Metaverse as well.
Enterprises, before embarking on a journey to integrate Metaverse into their tech stack need to be aware of these security threats to make strategic decisions.
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