If you want to know what can be great about it metavers, talks to 12-year-old Cooper Stone. Play video games like Fortnite and use your virtual reality headset to play sports.
“Metavers is a virtual reality world where you can go to concerts, see famous, cool people around the world,” Stone told CBS News’ national consumer research correspondent Anna Werner.
In the future, these experiences are likely to look more real, as Jason Rubin of Meta, formerly known as Facebook, told CBS News in February in an interview with a virtual reality show.
“Slowly but surely I think the things you can do in metavers and the amount of time you spend in virtual reality in metavers will slowly increase to the point that we really become an immersive world,” Rubin said.
So it’s no surprise that companies are looking for ways to create experiences and make money on Metavers.
But security experts believe that where there is money to be made, criminals will not be left behind and everything, including money, personal information and social security numbers, is in jeopardy.
“We totally hope they get to that,” said Kevin Gosschalk, co-founder of Arkose Labs.
Stone and his parents say they were already scammed when hackers logged into their Fortnite account last year and charged their parents’ credit cards.
Epic Games, the company that owns Fortnite, told CBS News that it has purchase controls for parents to manage Fortnite purchases and “checks all accounts for signs of commitment continuously” to help stop fraud.
Epic added that “Most of the time, a compromise account is the result of malicious software, phishing, or password reuse across multiple sites. Our parental controls allow families to make informed decisions about their children’s Fortnite experience. These include purchase controls that apply to all payments made through Epic Games Payment Service. ” Players and parents can learn more about keeping their online accounts secure on their website.
Caroline Wong, with cybersecurity company Cobalt.io, said that criminal attacks can take more disturbing forms – for example, if a hacker accesses your VR headset.
“If a hacker can access this camera, they can see your office, they can see your bedroom. They can see the inside of your house,” Wong said. “This is called a camera attack. Another is called an overlay attack. When they can control what you see and what you hear.”
Some of the contents of the metavers may be disturbing to some users, especially children, such as searching for weapons in some user-created rooms and inappropriate graffiti images of the metavers.
Meta declined to comment with the camera on CBS News, but said the Quest headphones are designed for children ages 13 and up with some experiences only for people 18 and older.
Meta has previously said that they will offer additional parental supervision tools to monitor the activities of their teens.
The company said it has set up “safe zones” within the software so that users can get out of situations they may find uncomfortable. Later this month, the company will offer a way for parents to block specific apps that aren’t age-appropriate for teens.
VR Chat said underage users are not allowed and are banned if detected and that “user safety is a priority.”
“You can’t protect yourself from everything. But there are things you can do,” Wong said. “They build the world, they create experiences. Everything is very purposeful. Everything is already being monitored. How long do your eyes look at a particular digital object? Exactly what you click, exactly what you type. It’s all about can be controlled “.
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