VR4Sec Security for XR and XR for Security

Preview. Almost exactly 10 years ago, in May 2011, we submitted our first paper on security and privacy for emerging augmented reality (AR) systems [15], to the 2011 USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Security (HotSec). Though the paper was rejected — a revised version later appearing as the cover article of the Communications of the ACM magazine in April 201 — it launched us on a now 10-year research trajectory anticipating, studying, and designing to mitigate security, privacy, and safety issues in AR (and/or in MR, XR, VR)...

Preview. Virtual Reality (VR) is expected to become an enabling technology for training in realistic conditions, data visualisation, education and many other applications. However, there is still limited research on cyber threats to VR environments and even less on technical protections against them. We are currently developing a VR testbed specifically designed for assessing different cyber threats, their impact to user experience and corresponding defences. In this work in progress, we demonstrate two novel approaches by which a cyber attack can potentially cause VR sickness on demand...

Preview. With recent augmented reality (AR) systems becoming more prevalent and collaborative, there is an increased need for AR interaction techniques to mitigate the unique privacy concerns with multi-user, always-on AR. We present a study design based on two multi-user AR scenarios which expands on user-driven elicitation as a popular method in HCI by pairing AR and privacy experts together to iteratively design interactions and analyze corresponding privacy threats...

Preview. This paper presents insights from the PrXR workshop conducted at IEEE VR 2021. We identified several topic areas related to privacy and security risks for virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality (XR) applications. Risks are presented from the perspective of the XR community. We attempt to thematically group the workshop findings and highlight the challenges brought up by the participants...

Preview. Virtual reality (VR) security and privacy are not limited to existing software solutions and applications. In this article, we present to the community the challenges of VR systems with robot integration. Integrating robots under ROS poses a massive risk in terms of data security. At the same time, using a robot for simulations in VR requires, first and foremost, the user’s safety - hence redundant data collection and sharing...

Preview. This paper aims to asses the usefulness of 3D interactive interfaces to display periodic signals in a network. Past research has shown that 2D data visualization simplifies alerts classification. Including those drawn by periodicity based Intrusion Detection Systems. However, 2D visualisations have limitations such as screen space availability. This is why we created CyberCopter, a prototype that uses a 3D helical representation to highlight periodic patterns in a dataset...

Preview. Research in Virtual Reality (VR) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has leveraged human’s perceptual abilities to induce VR illusions — an imperceptible manipulation on the user’s body motions that dominantly aims for positive purposes. For example, providing haptic feedback [1], enhancing presence [4], and improving ergonomics in VR [3]. However, this technological paradigm often fails to consider its potential for malicious design...

Preview. As extended reality (XR) devices become mainstream, so will XR advertising. XR advertising will offer numerous ways for businesses to interact with consumers. However, it also poses novel consumer risks, including possible privacy violations for consumers. We know from online advertising that advertisers strive to collect vast quantities of user data to profile users and target ads...

Preview. Operators in closed-circuit television (CCTV) control rooms have to monitor large sets of video feeds coming from an ever increasing number of cameras. To assist these operators in their demanding day-to-day tasks, AI-driven support systems accompanied by user-centric interfaces are being developed. However, prototyping these support systems...

Preview. Virtual Reality is becoming more affordable and will soon become ubiquitous within society. However, currently the technology is not there yet, as virtual reality can pose security and privacy risks to a user which they may not be aware of. In Virtual Reality, information is always being collected, even when the user may believe the headset is turned off [1,2]...

Preview. In this paper, we will discuss our point of view of the use of Mixed Environments for Cybersecurity, especially for training and data analysis purposes. We will argue that Collaborative Mixed Environments could merge training and analysis approaches by providing users several points of view on cyber situations....