An Empirical Study on Oculus Virtual Reality Applications: Security and Privacy Perspectives

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Guo, Hanyang, Dai, Hong-Ning, Luo, Xiapu, Zheng, Zibin, Xu, Gengyang, He, Fengliang
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Guo, Hanyang
Dai, Hong-Ning
Luo, Xiapu
Zheng, Zibin
Xu, Gengyang
He, Fengliang
author_facet Guo, Hanyang
Dai, Hong-Ning
Luo, Xiapu
Zheng, Zibin
Xu, Gengyang
He, Fengliang
contents Although Virtual Reality (VR) has accelerated its prevalent adoption in emerging metaverse applications, it is not a fundamentally new technology. On one hand, most VR operating systems (OS) are based on off-the-shelf mobile OS. As a result, VR apps also inherit privacy and security deficiencies from conventional mobile apps. On the other hand, in contrast to conventional mobile apps, VR apps can achieve immersive experience via diverse VR devices, such as head-mounted displays, body sensors, and controllers though achieving this requires the extensive collection of privacy-sensitive human biometrics. Moreover, VR apps have been typically implemented by 3D gaming engines (e.g., Unity), which also contain intrinsic security vulnerabilities. Inappropriate use of these technologies may incur privacy leaks and security vulnerabilities although these issues have not received significant attention compared to the proliferation of diverse VR apps. In this paper, we develop a security and privacy assessment tool, namely the VR-SP detector for VR apps. The VR-SP detector has integrated program static analysis tools and privacy-policy analysis methods. Using the VR-SP detector, we conduct a comprehensive empirical study on 500 popular VR apps. We obtain the original apps from the popular Oculus and SideQuest app stores and extract APK files via the Meta Oculus Quest 2 device. We evaluate security vulnerabilities and privacy data leaks of these VR apps by VR app analysis, taint analysis, and privacy-policy analysis. We find that a number of security vulnerabilities and privacy leaks widely exist in VR apps. Moreover, our results also reveal conflicting representations in the privacy policies of these apps and inconsistencies of the actual data collection with the privacy-policy statements of the apps. Based on these findings, we make suggestions for the future development of VR apps.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_13815
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Empirical Study on Oculus Virtual Reality Applications: Security and Privacy Perspectives
Guo, Hanyang
Dai, Hong-Ning
Luo, Xiapu
Zheng, Zibin
Xu, Gengyang
He, Fengliang
Software Engineering
Cryptography and Security
Although Virtual Reality (VR) has accelerated its prevalent adoption in emerging metaverse applications, it is not a fundamentally new technology. On one hand, most VR operating systems (OS) are based on off-the-shelf mobile OS. As a result, VR apps also inherit privacy and security deficiencies from conventional mobile apps. On the other hand, in contrast to conventional mobile apps, VR apps can achieve immersive experience via diverse VR devices, such as head-mounted displays, body sensors, and controllers though achieving this requires the extensive collection of privacy-sensitive human biometrics. Moreover, VR apps have been typically implemented by 3D gaming engines (e.g., Unity), which also contain intrinsic security vulnerabilities. Inappropriate use of these technologies may incur privacy leaks and security vulnerabilities although these issues have not received significant attention compared to the proliferation of diverse VR apps. In this paper, we develop a security and privacy assessment tool, namely the VR-SP detector for VR apps. The VR-SP detector has integrated program static analysis tools and privacy-policy analysis methods. Using the VR-SP detector, we conduct a comprehensive empirical study on 500 popular VR apps. We obtain the original apps from the popular Oculus and SideQuest app stores and extract APK files via the Meta Oculus Quest 2 device. We evaluate security vulnerabilities and privacy data leaks of these VR apps by VR app analysis, taint analysis, and privacy-policy analysis. We find that a number of security vulnerabilities and privacy leaks widely exist in VR apps. Moreover, our results also reveal conflicting representations in the privacy policies of these apps and inconsistencies of the actual data collection with the privacy-policy statements of the apps. Based on these findings, we make suggestions for the future development of VR apps.
title An Empirical Study on Oculus Virtual Reality Applications: Security and Privacy Perspectives
topic Software Engineering
Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.13815