Cyber Security Threats and Challenges in Collaborative Mixed-Reality

Abstract

Collaborative Mixed-Reality (CMR) applications are gaining interest in a wide range of areas including games, social interaction, design and health-care. To date, the vast majority of published work has focused on display technology advancements, software, collaboration architectures and applications. However, the potential security concerns that affect collaborative platforms have received limited research attention. In this position paper, we investigate the challenges posed by cyber-security threats to CMR systems. We focus on how typical network architectures facilitating CMR and how their vulnerabilities can be exploited by attackers, and discuss the degree of potential social, monetary impacts, psychological and other harms that may result from such exploits. The main purpose of this paper is to provoke a discussion on CMR security concerns. We highlight insights from a cyber-security threat modelling perspective and also propose potential directions for research and development toward better mitigation strategies. We present a simple, systematic approach to understanding a CMR attack surface through an abstraction-based reasoning framework to identify potential attack vectors. Using this framework, security analysts, engineers, designers and users alike (stakeholders) can identify potential Indicators of Exposures (IoE) and Indicators of Compromise (IoC). Our framework allows stakeholders to reduce their CMR attack surface as well understand how Intrusion Detection System (IDS) approaches can be adopted for CMR systems. To demonstrate the validity to our framework, we illustrate several CMR attack surfaces through a set of use-cases. Finally, we also present a discussion on future directions this line of research should take.

Virtual and augmented reality for biomedical applications

“…Apart from these challenges, privacy, security, and ethical concerns also need to be addressed as these technologies gain popularity. 64 For example, AR browsers installed on mobile devices can be hijacked. This feature can manipulate the AR content displayed by gaining unauthorized access to the device's camera and GPS.…”

Privacy-certification standards for extended-reality devices and services

“…Our previous work [5] outlined key cyber security challenges posed to Collaborative Mixed-Reality (CMR) systems, including threat detection and possible harms from actuated threats in mixedreality systems. We use this work as well as the aforementioned work as a starting point for our research into proposing key requirements for XR privacy-certification standards.…”

Telelife: The Future of Remote Living

“…Because of the distributed nature and data flow in typical AR/ VR systems, there is the danger that what is seen by the end user may not be intended by the developer since the rendered view may be vulnerable to alteration or injection by outside services or attackers. Each step of data flow, including detection, transformation, and rendering (i.e., inputs, operations, and outputs), should be protected, but each step requires different types of protections at the hardware, software, and communication level (Dahmen et al, 2017;Happa et al, 2019). In this respect, we need security and privacy standards for Telelife at a social and political level in the same way we have standards for wireless or network protocols.…”