Publication detail

Rise of the Metaverse's Immersive Virtual Reality Malware and the Man-in-the-Room Attack & Defenses

VONDRÁČEK, M. BAGGILI, I. CASEY, P. MEKNI, M.

Original Title

Rise of the Metaverse's Immersive Virtual Reality Malware and the Man-in-the-Room Attack & Defenses

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

English

Original Abstract

The allure of the metaverse along with Virtual Reality (VR) technologies and speed at which they are deployed may shift focus away from security and privacy fundamentals. In this work we employ classic exploitation techniques against cutting edge devices to obtain equally novel results. The unique features of the Virtual Reality landscape set the stage for our primary account of a new attack, the Man-in-the-Room (MitR). This attack, realized from a vulnerable social networking application led to both worming and botnet capabilities being adapted for VR with potential critical impacts affecting millions of users. Our work improves the state-of-the-art in VR security and socio-technical research in VR. It shares several analytical and attacking tools, example exploits, evaluation dataset, and vulnerability signatures with the scientific and professional communities to ensure secure VR software development. The presented results demonstrate the detection and prevention of VR vulnerabilities, and raise questions in the law and policy domains pertaining to VR security and privacy.

Keywords

Emerging technologies, Network-level security and protection, Network communications, Network Protocols, Protection mechanisms, Quality analysis and evaluation, System issues, Security and Privacy Protection, Authentication, Communications Applications, Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities, Virtual reality, Security and Protection, Invasive software (viruses, worms, Trojan horses), Unauthorized access (hacking, phreaking)

Authors

VONDRÁČEK, M.; BAGGILI, I.; CASEY, P.; MEKNI, M.

Released

1. 4. 2023

ISBN

0167-4048

Periodical

COMPUTERS & SECURITY

Year of study

127

Number

1

State

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Pages from

1

Pages to

13

Pages count

13

URL

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167404822003157

BibTex

@article{BUT188010,
  author="VONDRÁČEK, M. and BAGGILI, I. and CASEY, P. and MEKNI, M.",
  title="Rise of the Metaverse's Immersive Virtual Reality Malware and the Man-in-the-Room Attack & Defenses",
  journal="COMPUTERS & SECURITY",
  year="2023",
  volume="127",
  number="1",
  pages="1--13",
  doi="10.1016/j.cose.2022.102923",
  issn="0167-4048",
  url="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167404822003157"
}