Next-Gen Metaverse Security Through Intrusion Detection Enhanced by Transformers and GANs

As the metaverse grows in popularity and complexity, securing its virtual environment is critical. Metaverse intrusion detection involves identifying and preventing unauthorized access, malicious activities, and potential threats. To address these challenges, we propose a novel Metaverse intrusion detection system (MIDS) that combines generative adversarial networks (GAN) and Transformer-based classifiers. The system operates in three stages: 1) generating diverse and realistic network traffic using GAN; 2) detecting intrusions with a Transformer-based classifier; and 3) ensuring data privacy through federated learning and a trusted authority mechanism. Unlike traditional methods, our approach employs dual aggregation, generating both global and local models tailored to users’ needs. Tested on public datasets, the method achieves state-of-the-art performance with an F1-score of 0.9984, demonstrating its effectiveness in generating realistic training data and improving MIDS performance. This approach can extend to other security domains requiring diverse data for training.