Security, Privacy, and Trust for and through the Metaverse

Dear Colleagues,

The metaverse, a collaborative, virtual shared space, is he fusion of physically augmented virtual reality with a continuous virtual realm. This space encompasses all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet. It is the future peak of digital immersion. Growing interest from various sectors, including industry leaders, everyday consumers, academic scholars, and enthusiastic students, underscores the metaverse's significance in our evolving digital landscape.

However, there emerges a crucial concern: the security, privacy, and trust associated with the digital personas, virtual assets, computational models, and online interactions within the metaverse. This concern is not only about preserving the integrity of virtual assets, but also about ensuring that the digital representations of users are protected from potential threats. These identities, often intricate and highly personalized, require stringent protection measures to prevent misuse or unauthorized access.

Simultaneously, concerns related to user security, privacy, and trust have been magnified. Users are not just passive participants; they actively shape the metaverse's ever-evolving ecosystem. Their interactions, ranging from simple communications to complex transactions, are the lifeblood of this digital universe. Protecting these interactions and the users involved in them is of the utmost importance.

There is a pressing need for robust, adaptable, and forward-thinking frameworks to address these concerns. Not just in order to implement current best practices, but also to forecast potential future threats and devise preemptive solutions. Research and technological innovations are the backbone of this endeavor. The objective of this Special Issue is to present research that can help create secure metaverse environments in which users can operate with confidence, knowing that their digital footprints are secure, and their virtual experiences are uncompromised.

Furthermore, the metaverse is a powerful tool that can strengthen the security of our physical world by addressing one of the most significant vulnerabilities in our modern digital systems: user mistakes stemming from a lack of cybersecurity awareness. Incorporating the metaverse into the development and education of the cybersecurity workforce offers a transformative approach to hands-on training and skill enhancement. In this expansive virtual realm, educators can craft realistic, dynamic, and multidimensional cyber-attack simulations, allowing students to engage in real-time defense, mitigation, and analysis in a controlled environment. This immersive experience not only bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application, but also provides a safe sandbox for promising cybersecurity professionals to learn without any real-world repercussions. By leveraging the metaverse's capabilities, educational institutions and training centers can foster a new generation of cyber experts who are better prepared to tackle evolving digital threats, refining their skills in the most advanced virtual training grounds available.

In light of these challenges and possibilities, this Special Issue aims to guide the way forward. It will assemble influential research, insights, and case studies that thoroughly investigate the realms of security, privacy, and trust in the metaverse. By bringing together thought leaders and pioneers from various disciplines, this Special Issue will enable a comprehensive view of the metaverse, shedding light on existing challenges and paving the way for innovative solutions. We can ensure that the metaverse is a safe, private, and trustworthy space for all its users.

Primary Goals:

- Consolidation of current research and technological advancements in metaverse security, privacy, and trust.

- Identification of gaps, challenges, and future directions for academia and industry.

- Creation of a platform for multi-disciplinary dialogue between tech developers, ethicists, legal professionals, and end-users.

Submissions for this Special Issue are invited on topics including, but not limited to:

- The fundamentals of security in the metaverse: data and model security, user privacy, authentication, and trust establishment.

- Privacy concerns and strategies in the metaverse: data collection, sharing, and utilization.

- Trust frameworks and decentralized trust systems in the metaverse.

- Case studies of security breaches, attacks, and their implications.

- Using the metaverse as a tool to move towards secure and trustworthy computing and workforce development.

- Metaverse applications in education, training, and workforce development.

- Ethical considerations and their role in the metaverse.

- Governance and regulatory challenges related to security and privacy.

- Human-centered approaches to security, privacy, and trust.

- Impacts of quantum computing on metaverse security.

Dr. Mohamed Azab
Prof. Dr. Denis Gracanin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• metaverse
• security
• privacy