Abstract
In an emerging era of virtual reality, cybercrimes become a significant challenge. The metaverse is a digital realm where people can socialize, work, play, invest, learn, entertain, and much more. The nature of the metaverse raises the concerns of cybercrimes. In this chapter, a deep understanding of potential threats is discussed. Several threats will be highlighted, such as virtual identity theft and impersonation, virtual real estate frauds, malware and ransomware, virtual espionage, advanced phishing, and social engineering. To forecast these threats, insights from cybercrimes are adapted and extrapolated to fit the unique environment of the metaverse. This will guide law enforcement, technical people, policymakers, regulators, and researchers.
Top3. Types Of Threat Actors
Different motivations and capabilities lead to a diverse range of hackers. State-sponsored, cybercriminal organizations and hacktivist groups are different threat actors. State-sponsored hackers are individuals or groups that conduct cyber-attacks like advanced persistent threats for economic, political, military, or other potential purposes (Akoto, 2021). Cybercriminal organizations are identified as hackers who perform illegal activities such as data theft, ransomware, and identity theft to gain profit (Nicolae Sfetcu, 2023). Individual hackers are hackers who perform different types of attacks individually, like unauthorized access, data theft, and disruption of services, and they are also known as black hat hackers (Gerstenfeld, J. 2023). Hacktivist groups are usually motivated by political goals or social agendas and conduct illegal actions like website defacement, denial of service attacks, and data breaches to raise awareness about specific issues (Ulrich et al.; S., 2023).