KARA KELLY
SARAH IANNANTUONO
MEETING THE SECURITY AND PRIVACY CHALLENGES OF THE METAVERSE By Kara Kelly, Manager at Deloitte and Sarah Iannantuono, Security Strategy and Program at SEEK “Other virtual worlds soon followed suit, from the Metaverse to the Matrix. … Users could now teleport back and forth between their favorite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid‑World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds.” Ready Player One
The metaverse, a fully immersive shared virtual
have brought to light the ways in which innocent-
space for humans to work and socialise, became
looking games can have real security and privacy
the subject of global discourse in 2022. The term
issues. Imagine playing in a virtual reality escape
‘metaverse’—coined by author Neal Stephenson in his
room while, behind the scenes, an adversarial
1992 novel ‘Snow Crash’—entered into mainstream
program was able to accurately infer over 25 personal
popular discourse (or as we like to say, dinner party/
data attributes about you: height, age, gender, etc.
BBQ conversations) after Facebook rebranded as
That is certainly not ideal.
Meta in line with a focus on leading the development of the metaverse. So, virtual hands up, who within the
With businesses racing to boost their bottom lines
security, risk and privacy professions has been asked
and governments taking advantage of the topicality of
by family or friends what the metaverse is?
the metaverse there is a genuine need for reimagined security and privacy processes. It is imperative
Depictions of the metaverse in the media, such as
cybersecurity professionals are involved in metaverse
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, romanticise the
opportunity exploration or discussion within their
concept of the metaverse. However, recent studies
organisations to influence greater security and privacy.
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