Virtual universe <Second Life suffers real world security breach:
The creators of Second Life, a virtual world where people play out fantasy lives online, has asked all players to change their passwords after a hacker breached a database containing their real-world personal data – including names and addresses, passwords and payment data.
Technorati Tags: games, privacy, security
Linden Lab, the San Francisco company behind Second Life, says the database breach potentially exposed data including the unencrypted names and addresses, and the encrypted passwords and encrypted payment information of all 650,000 Second Life players.
The company says unencrypted credit card information, which is stored on a separate database, was not compromised.
The breach was discovered on 6 September and in an e-mail sent on 8 September Linden Lab informed all Second Life members about the problem and told them to request a new password