Social engineering in metaverse environment

Recently, with the development of the COVID-19 pandemic and the next generation telecommunication network (5G), the metaverse, in which users interact with each other through avatars, has attracted increasingly attention. However, like traditional cyberspace, the metaverse, a three-dimensional (3D) virtual world built on the internet, also faces various unexpected security threats. In addition, some traditional forms and methods of cyberspace threats have undergone further evolution in the metaverse environment. Consequently, social engineering attacks become more applicable depending on the characteristics of the metaverse. In this paper, we explain that the user’s avatar usage needs, psychological needs and immersion needs are the reasons for social engineering attacks in metaverse. Then, we present a conceptual model to describe how social engineering attacks work in metaverse. Finally, the effects of social engineering attacks in three metaverse application scenarios are presented. We hope that this research will draw the attention of designers and users of metaverse environments to effectively reduce the success rate of social engineering attacks in the metaverse.