eprintid: 10197259 rev_number: 6 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/19/72/59 datestamp: 2024-09-19 12:15:26 lastmod: 2024-09-19 12:15:26 status_changed: 2024-09-19 12:15:26 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Baldry, Moya Kate creators_name: Happa, Jassim creators_name: Steed, Anthony creators_name: Smith, Simon creators_name: Glencross, Mashhuda title: From Embodied Abuse to Mass Disruption: Generative, Inter-Reality Threats in Social, Mixed-Reality Platforms ispublished: inpress divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: F48 note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: Extended Reality (XR) platforms can expose users to novel attacks including embodied abuse and/or AI attacks-at-scale. The expanded attack surfaces of XR technologies may expose users of shared online platforms to psychological/social and physiological harms via embodied interactions with potentially millions of other humans or artificial humans, causing what we define as an inter-reality attack. The past twenty years have demonstrated how social and other harms (e.g. bullying, assault and stalking) can and do shift to digital social media and gaming platforms. XR technologies becoming more mainstream has led to investigations of ethical and technical consequences of these expanded input surfaces. However, there is limited literature that investigates social attacks, particularly toward vulnerable communities, and how AI technologies may accelerate generative attacks-at-scale. This paper employs human-centred research methods and a harms-centred Cybersecurity framework to co-design a testbed of socio-technical attack scenarios in XR social gaming platforms. It uses speculative fiction to further extrapolate how these could reach attacks-at-scale by applying generative AI techniques. It develops an Inter-Reality Threat Model to outline how actions in virtual environments can impact on the real-world. As AI capability continues to rapidly develop, this paper articulates the urgent need to consider a future where XR-AI attacks-at-scale could become commonplace. date: 2024-09-17 date_type: published publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3696015 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2313220 doi: 10.1145/3696015 lyricists_name: Steed, Anthony lyricists_id: ASTEE91 actors_name: Flynn, Bernadette actors_id: BFFLY94 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Digital Threats: Research and Practice issn: 2576-5337 citation: Baldry, Moya Kate; Happa, Jassim; Steed, Anthony; Smith, Simon; Glencross, Mashhuda; (2024) From Embodied Abuse to Mass Disruption: Generative, Inter-Reality Threats in Social, Mixed-Reality Platforms. Digital Threats: Research and Practice 10.1145/3696015 <https://doi.org/10.1145/3696015>. (In press). Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197259/1/3696015.pdf