Threat Model-based Security Analysis and Mitigation Strategies for a Trustworthy Metaverse

The Metaverse is the future of the Internet-connected world of social networks. It uses emerging technologies such as extended reality (XR), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and meta-quest headsets. As the popularity of the Metaverse grows, cyber-criminals are increasingly targeting it and its users. Unfortunately, security and privacy are some of the most challenging areas of the Metaverse, and yet, very little focus has been given to making it trustworthy. To achieve this goal, it is important to perform a thorough and systematic security analysis that would allow the adoption of proper mitigation strategies. A threat model-based analysis can help in such an analysis. This paper presents a threat model-based systematic security analysis of the Metaverse. We use the widely accepted STRIDE model to identify the threats of the Metaverse along with corresponding mitigation strategies. Our threat model can help the users, researchers, and developers build a trustworthy Metaverse.