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The company is recommending that all of its subscribers change their passwords immediately to safeguard their data.

Cory Ondrejka, CTO of developers Linden Lab said in a statement, 'While we realise this is an inconvenience for residents, we believe it's the safest course of action. We place the highest priority on protecting customer data and will continue to take aggressive measures to protect the privacy and security of the community.'

Unencrypted credit card information, which is stored on a separate database, was not compromised. However, Linden Lab stresses to anyone who is approached about their account that the company will not contact individuals by phone or any other method asking for private information unless it is in response to an inquiry from the individual user

Second Life is a three dimensional world that allows subscribers to create a virtual version of themselves, buy property and set up a business earning 'Linden dollars'. Although several attempts at such virtual worlds have been made in the past, the combination of powerful PCs and broadband services has made the community the first to really take off.