Cybersecurity in the AI-Based Metaverse: A Survey

The Metaverse is a multi-user virtual world that combines physical reality with digital virtual reality. The three basic technologies for building the Metaverse are immersive technologies, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Companies are subsequently making significant investments into creating an artificially intelligent Metaverse, with the consequence that cybersecurity has become more crucial. As cybercrime increases exponentially, it is evident that a comprehensive study of Metaverse security based on artificial intelligence is lacking. A growing number of distributed denial-of-service attacks and theft of user identification information makes it necessary to conduct comprehensive and inclusive research in this field in order to identify the Metaverse's vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This article provides a summary of existing research on AI-based Metaverse cybersecurity and discusses relevant security challenges. Based on the results, the issue of user identification plays a very important role in the presented works, for which biometric methods are the most commonly used. While the use of biometric data is considered the safest method, due to their uniqueness, they are also susceptible to misuse. A cyber-situation management system based on artificial intelligence should be able to analyze data of any volume with the help of algorithms. To prepare researchers who will pursue this topic in the future, this article provides a comprehensive summary of research on cybersecurity in the Metaverse based on artificial intelligence.