Metaverse in Health Care: Security Challenges and Pathways for Future Research

Metaverse technology is assumed as the future of digital healthcare because this technology has the potential to contribute a lot. Despite the extensive exploration of this concept in various domains, including healthcare, there remains a notable gap in addressing security concerns within virtual worlds. This vulnerability arises from several factors, including wireless communication, open-area deployment, the adoption of new devices and users, and authentication processes. These factors make the technology susceptible to various internal and external threats, such as tampering attacks, jamming attacks, spoofing attacks, blackhole attacks, sinkhole attacks and many more. Considering the importance of this topic, in this study, we start our discussion with the privacy and security concerns of the Metaverse technology, focusing on its applications in the healthcare domain. We extend this talk to virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), extended reality (XR), and mixed reality (MR), as these technologies constitute the foundational components of the Metaverse. Subsequently, our attention shifts to the evaluation of primary security authentication methods deployed in VR, AR, MR, and other associated technologies. These methods include information-based authentication, biometric-based authentication, password-based authentication, context-based authentication, PIN-based authentication, and multi-model-based authentication paradigm, etc. Furthermore, we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the relevant literature, laying the groundwork for future research directions. Finally, we conclude the paper with what work needs to be done for the improved safety and security of this technology in healthcare.