I'm not sure how many of our readers are involved in the online escapade that is Second Life, but I do know that it certainly sounds like an interesting concept. The game allows you to control an avatar that can participate in many different types of business transactions, but with a catch - strike it rich, and you can be looking at real money. Yep - real money, like that hacker just walked off with when he got your credit card, name, and address from the game's servers.
It appears Second Life is about to get a dose of real life - the game houses the information of over 650,000 "residents," of which more than 280,000 logged on just within the last month. All 650,000 got letters from the game's creator, Linden Lab, explaining the server break-in. Stolen data included unencrypted names, addresses, and passwords as well as encrypted payment (credit card) information.
Not all is bad in the virtual world, though - the database that includes all of that payment information in an unencrypted format was not compromised. For now, Linden Lab has requested its residents to change their account passwords, which should help prevent any actual access to bank accounts for most people. Assuming the encryption on the payment database isn't cracked open like the server was, damage will amount to little more than some names and addresses.
Have you got a thought on the break-in? Do you play Second Life, and are miffed to hear that your info might be floating around? Let us know your thoughts in our forums.
It appears Second Life is about to get a dose of real life - the game houses the information of over 650,000 "residents," of which more than 280,000 logged on just within the last month. All 650,000 got letters from the game's creator, Linden Lab, explaining the server break-in. Stolen data included unencrypted names, addresses, and passwords as well as encrypted payment (credit card) information.
Not all is bad in the virtual world, though - the database that includes all of that payment information in an unencrypted format was not compromised. For now, Linden Lab has requested its residents to change their account passwords, which should help prevent any actual access to bank accounts for most people. Assuming the encryption on the payment database isn't cracked open like the server was, damage will amount to little more than some names and addresses.
Have you got a thought on the break-in? Do you play Second Life, and are miffed to hear that your info might be floating around? Let us know your thoughts in our forums.
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