Virtual world Second Life, which facilitates user-created property and business-transactions, has become the victim of a client-side exploit, but an emergency patch has already been deployed by developers Linden Lab. The company will perform an internal post-mortem on the hack attack before making an official statement.
Credible rumours suggest that a modified Second Life client was hacked to allow "god mode" privleges, whereby money could be created out of thin air and property stolen. One resident said that "a bunch" of normally-obscured, user-created executable scripts were copied, and it is rumoured that a popular in-world gun was copied. In-world retailer Gigas Group reports that some of their obsolete scripts were copied. Another virtual-goods retailer, SL Exchange, was slightly compromised, but the firm's operator said that no problems were caused. Other firms, products and scripts rumoured to be on the loose include SLboutique (old vendor code), Nexcom, Cubey Terra's flight code, Scan Foo, and the Ginko ATM.
The Gaming Open Market, which is a commodities exchange dealing in Linden Dollars (play-money) and US dollars, was not affected by the client hack due to the GOM's server-side security measures. The GOM is a popular way for Second Life residents to "cash out" of the virtual world, and has traded over two million US dollars since opening.
Credible rumours suggest that a modified Second Life client was hacked to allow "god mode" privleges, whereby money could be created out of thin air and property stolen. One resident said that "a bunch" of normally-obscured, user-created executable scripts were copied, and it is rumoured that a popular in-world gun was copied. In-world retailer Gigas Group reports that some of their obsolete scripts were copied. Another virtual-goods retailer, SL Exchange, was slightly compromised, but the firm's operator said that no problems were caused. Other firms, products and scripts rumoured to be on the loose include SLboutique (old vendor code), Nexcom, Cubey Terra's flight code, Scan Foo, and the Ginko ATM.
The Gaming Open Market, which is a commodities exchange dealing in Linden Dollars (play-money) and US dollars, was not affected by the client hack due to the GOM's server-side security measures. The GOM is a popular way for Second Life residents to "cash out" of the virtual world, and has traded over two million US dollars since opening.
