Researchers have warned about the potential emergence of a 'Darkverse' environment, created for facilitating criminal activities within the Metaverse, according to a study by a leading cybersecurity firm Trend Micro.
The study outlines Darkverse as a “space for underground marketplaces, criminal communications, and illegal activities”, which mimics clandestine physical meetings over the metaverse environment.
Researchers claim that cybercriminals will migrate from dark web forums to this Darkverse space because it will be inaccessible to law enforcement agencies.
What’s more, this virtual environment will be designed such that users can only access it if they are in a specific physical location and have valid authentication tokens to access the environment.
“Instead of meeting in underground forums, criminals will be able to virtually walk into metaverse dark web markets,” says Trend Micro
Darkverse threat scenarios
According to Trend Micro, the primary security concern for the Darkverse will be the emergence of “pseudo-physical” marketplaces akin to the Darkweb.
The researchers claim that “even if law enforcement agencies (LEA) are aware of these spaces, they would be unable to infiltrate them without authentication tokens.
“Users of the darkverse could also implement location-based messages as well as proximity messages for metaverse spaces.
“This would make it extremely difficult for LEA to intercept exchanged communications."
Alarmingly, “Because LEA do not have a way to monitor child pornography or sexual assault in the Darkverse, these types of crimes will gradually grow.”
About the Metaverse
The word 'Metaverse' was coined by Neal Stephenson in his cult science fiction novel Snow Crash, where he envisioned virtual lifelike avatars who congregate in realistic 3D virtual reality environments.
Trailblazing this new frontier is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with the recent Meta rebrand, which triggered a new wave of interest in the Metaverse.
Zuckerberg said: “In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine — get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create — as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today.
“In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parent's living room to catch up. This will open up more opportunity no matter where you live.
“You’ll be able to spend more time on what matters to you, cut down time in traffic, and reduce your carbon footprint,” he said.
Simply put, the end goal is an immersive virtual world where people live, work and socialise connected to VR devices in the comfort of their own home.