Source: https://cobaltstrike.net/2022/04/04/the-metaverse-is-approaching-what-threats-does-it-pose/
Large technology companies are working hard to create their own metaverses and are not going to stop. However, regardless of whose version of the metaverse eventually wins, when this happens, the new environment will bring with it new privacy and security issues. It is possible that the cyber threats that humanity has been fighting for decades will only worsen with the advent of the metaverse.
Do not forget that the modern Internet is based on the so-called surveillance capitalism or surveillance capitalism. That is, the ability to monitor the activity of users on the Internet, analyze them, collect information about them and their preferences is at the heart of the business model of almost all major technology companies.
Another problem that will not go away with the arrival of the metaverse is software vulnerabilities that developers do not have time to properly fix, since it is more profitable for companies to bring the product to market as soon as possible, and the protection of user data goes by the wayside. As a result, widespread leaks are becoming so commonplace that users have no choice but to continue using the companies’ products.
At the same time, scammers will not disappear either. Phishing attacks or ransomware attacks, whatever it is, the police can rarely find the culprit, and if they can, the criminals will quickly “retrain”, or it will turn out that they work for the government at all. In both cases, it is extremely difficult to bring them to justice.
Large technology companies already know so much about people thanks only to the sites they visit. How much information will tech giants be able to collect when they have the opportunity to record almost everything that the user’s gaze stops at. This in itself is bad, but even worse is that the collected data tends to leak.
“The problems of the past and present Internet, identity theft, identity theft, social engineering, state espionage, inevitable vulnerabilities, all this will remain with us in the metaverse,” said Charlie Bell, executive vice president for security, compliance, identity and governance at Microsoft.
And this is just the beginning. There will be other risks associated with the physical representation of users in the virtual world.
However, if you think about it, the metaverse will make all these threats much more obvious, and as a result, technology companies will be forced to fix problems, including those that have been turned a blind eye for a long time.