Welcome to the strange, surprising new world of metaverse cybersecurity

Everyone started talking about the metaverse in the summer of 2021. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked it off with his plan to focus his company on building what he imagined would be the future of social, business, leisure and culture: the metaverse. He even changed the name of his company from Facebook to Meta.

Since then, the chatter about the coming changes has been loud. Silicon Valley, the global tech industry, the media — everyone is talking about it. But what is the metaverse, exactly? And what are the cybersecurity implications of living more of our lives in a virtual world?