Real-life data exposed on fantasy site 'Second life'

An online virtual world ‘Second Life’ has been affected by a computer security breach. Its database was hacked and some real-world personal data of its users including account names, real life names and contact information were exposed.

Linden Lab is a San Francisco-based company which owns the Second Life site. It has said in a letter to its 650,000 users that some user information may have been accessed after its databases were broken into and as a part of its security actions it now requires the users to request new passwords as the Company has invalidated all existing Second Life account passwords

"On September 6 we discovered evidence that an intruder was able to access the 'Second Life' database through the web servers," Linden Lab wrote on its public forums on Friday. "The exploit was shut down on the afternoon of September 6 when we discovered it."

Users can change the password by accessing the log-in page at https://secondlife.com/password, and clicking on the "Forgot Password" link. An email will be sent to the email address that is registered with the site. After clicking through the link in that email, users are required to answer a security question and create a new password.

Cory Ondrejka, the chief technology officer of Linden Lab said, "While we realize this is an inconvenience for residents, we believe it's the safest course of action."

Second Life is a three-dimensional software world on the Web. Users of this site design animated characters for themselves in order to interact with other participants. Users buy and sell virtual land and build businesses with currency called "Linden Dollars," which can be exchanged for real currency.

The Company’s additional security plans will be announced on its blog at http://blog.secondlife.com/?tag=security/.