Cyber warfare in Metaverse

Metaverse raises some complex questions that cyber risk professionals will need to grapple with sooner rather than later.

I recently asked my LinkedIn followers which topic(s) they’d like to see CRMG explore over the coming weeks. We were overwhelmingly requested to cover cyber warfare, so here’s our initial view.

Cyber warfare in Metaverse

Global interest in Metaverse is feverish, with organisations starting to wonder what this avatar-populated parallel universe means for them. In a world without physical constraints, the seemingly impossible becomes possible. I guess that’s the point of Metaverse. Metaverse presents the opportunity to achieve the unimaginable.

But what’s this got to do with cyber warfare?

The potential of nation states and criminal groups to wage cyber warfare on their targets is clear. Think about the recent Colonial gas pipeline attack or the Solar Winds breach. Attack vectors are usually swiftly understood and the likely perpetrators identified. Preventing and responding to cyber-attacks isn’t easy, but there are proven mechanisms for identifying threats, building defences and equipping ourselves to react. While you might not realise it right now, there’s a degree of comfort that comes with protecting assets in our real world.

However, protecting our national and economic interests in Metaverse will be significantly more complex.

With Metaverse, let’s assume that we can throw away the rule book with respect to nearly everything - jurisdictions, regulations, behavioural norms, technologies. Even identities may cease to apply in the traditional sense. Sure, we can secure the infrastructure that hosts Metaverse, but protecting our national, corporate and individual interests when it comes to what’s going on inside will be a whole new ball game. And you can bet your bottom non-fungible token that nefarious states and groups will exploit it to maximum effect.

As economic interests are gradually transposed into Metaverse, the effect on real lives when those interests are attacked will become just as acute as in our traditional world. Organised criminal gangs will take advantage of the additional veil of anonymity that Metaverse offers to obscure their activities, to groom their avatar-victims, to orchestrate surveillance on economic targets and launch innovative offensives that we just never saw coming. Ditto when it comes to rogue nations.

We don’t have any answers to all this yet, of course, although addressing that veil of anonymity will become a big priority very fast (after all, even virtual worlds need accountability). What I do know is that - to borrow a famous slogan from Apple Computer - we’re all going to need to ‘Think Different’.