This separate, rapidly evolving space creates new opportunities to engage with audiences and prevent costly mistakes. You could even discover the metaverse as your very own digital twin! This twin might function as an AI-powered stand-in avatar that goes to meetings for you. It could be powering your virtual asset portfolio or executing cryptographic contracts in your name. Sounds futuristic, right? It's closer than you think. I want to know what happens when that digital you goes off the deep end. What happens if that AI turns into a rogue agent, working for your business’s interests but not others or even contrary to the interests of third parties?

NHIs Exploding, Metaverses Expanding

We're already drowning in Non-Human Identities (NHIs). For every one of those human identities in your organization, there are about seventeen machine identities whizzing around. These are the service accounts, API keys, and automated agents that keep the digital lights on. Take all of that and then let’s super charge that with the metaverse! Within this parallel universe, a non-human intermediary will serve as your digital stand-in, navigating all interactions, transactions, and digital resources. This explosion of NHIs in the metaverse creates a massive, largely unmanaged attack surface.

Think of it this way: Your digital twin needs "keys" to access resources, just like you need passwords and permissions in the real world. These keys are NHIs. But if those keys get into the wrong hands, the destruction possible is catastrophic. We’re talking about a lot of stolen virtual goods, compromised IP. We’re working on ways to combat misinformation and malicious code associated with you.

Decentralized Danger, Centralized Solution

The fact that many metaverse platforms are decentralized makes the equation even more complicated. What worked as security measures in connected infrastructures, engineered with a top down structure, failed here. Consider enforcing access controls in a world where identity exists on a blockchain. Your digital twin engages with innumerable NHIs in countless virtual realms. It's a recipe for chaos.

Blockchain-based identity solutions and Decentralized Access Management (DAM) certainly show potential but they are not the magic elixir. We need creative, thoughtful solutions to bridge our current, centralized reality with the decentralized future we hope to build. Let’s build that bridge that carries us into this new future. This is where the unexpected connection comes in: think of securing NHIs in the metaverse like securing a city. You need a central command center (a unified view of all identities and their access), but you need distributed sensors and patrols (real-time monitoring and automated governance) to detect and respond to threats.

Veza, with its NHI Security product, is trying to solve this adversary’s dilemma. They're not just slapping a band-aid on an existing solution. They've built a platform from the ground up to natively discover and monitor both human and non-human identities across diverse environments. This isn’t a story about replacing your current security stack. It's about providing the visibility and control you need to manage the exploding number of NHIs in your organization, whether they're operating in your cloud environment or your metaverse avatar.

Visualizing Vulnerability, Acting Now

And no one, as far as I can tell, could paint those words better than Eloise, with her graphic-novel-influenced illustrative style. Imagine a nifty visualization showing your digital twin’s point of access pathways. It’s an energetic, messy matrix connecting to each jurisdiction’s constituent systems and resources. Next, picture those red lines glowing around the unneeded or dangerous links. That’s the attack surface you want to minimize.

We certainly can’t afford to wait until a significant NHI breach in the metaverse becomes front page news. The time to act is now. Start by asking yourself these tough questions:

  • What NHIs do I have running my business in the metaverse?
  • Who's responsible for managing those identities?
  • Do I have a clear understanding of their access privileges?
  • What happens when an identity becomes orphaned?

Next, use these insights to inform concrete steps to improve your NHI security posture. Use strong auth, keep everything on least privilege and monitor for bad stuff. Consider it digital hygiene for your digital twin.

The metaverse is here, whether we like it or not. We don’t want to sleepwalk into a dystopian future where our digital twins go all matrix on us, causing chaos and destruction in our new digital paradigms. Let's secure our identities, protect our assets, and build a metaverse that's both exciting and safe.