Security Considerations for Virtual Reality Systems
This work tackles security vulnerabilities in VR systems for commercial users, but it is incremental as it analyzes existing proposals rather than introducing new methods.
The paper addresses authentication challenges in virtual reality systems where traditional methods are inadequate due to the immersive nature of headsets blocking users' vision and exposing them to unauthorized observation. It concludes that a multidimensional authentication approach is necessary to meet the granular security needs of commercial VR applications.
There is a growing need for authentication methodology in virtual reality applications. Current systems assume that the immersive experience technology is a collection of peripheral devices connected to a personal computer or mobile device. Hence there is a complete reliance on the computing device with traditional authentication mechanisms to handle the authentication and authorization decisions. Using the virtual reality controllers and headset poses a different set of challenges as it is subject to unauthorized observation, unannounced to the user given the fact that the headset completely covers the field of vision in order to provide an immersive experience. As the need for virtual reality experiences in the commercial world increases, there is a need to provide other alternative mechanisms for secure authentication. In this paper, we analyze a few proposed authentication systems and reached a conclusion that a multidimensional approach to authentication is needed to address the granular nature of authentication and authorization needs of a commercial virtual reality applications in the commercial world.