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Dean Takahashi of the San Jose Mercury News revealed that people can take advantage of a known QuickTime problem and become virtual pickpockets in Linden Lab's Second Life. Steve over at EVE Online went down for nearly nine hours last Friday due to a security breach. Here's more from their official statement:...we discovered an anomaly in the EVE Online Database indicating a potential exploit. Our policy in such cases is to mobilize a taskforce of internal and external experts to evaluate the situation...that group concluded that our best course of action was to go completely dark while an exhaustive scan of our entire infrastructure was executed.Apparently no accounts were compromised, but hopefully steps are being taken to prevent such a hack in the future. Because no one wants their virtual self or their real self paying for someone else's space ship.

Don't panic! Yes, according to a report from GameDaily BIZ, a pair of PlayStation Network accounts were accosted during a minor "breach of security" at Sony Computer Entertainment America. This wasn't the work of a team of nefarious hackers of the Anonymous cyber-terrorist organization, but a simple duping of a customer service employee that resulted in the release of unauthorized information to a single user.

SCEA Senior Corporate Communications Manager Kimberly Otzman told GameDaily BIZ that "In response to the incident, SCEA immediately enhanced its customer service protocol, implementing additional security safeguards, and began an intensive investigation of the incident that remains ongoing." OK. Now you can panic.

Microsoft has gone on the record and admitted that phishing scams are occurring on Xbox LIVE. Well, technically they are admitting that phishers are trying to get LIVE account information while ignoring that there's more on the line, like personal credit card numbers. Offering reimbursement to customers, they also wanted to make clear:This was not a failure of software technology. We want to reassure our customers that there has been no security breach of the Xbox LIVE network or of Bungie.net.Isn't a phishing scam occurring on a closed and thereby safe network precisely framed as a failure of their technology? There's only so much any company can do to protect customers who are willing to re-enter personal info at the drop of a hat, but for all the sacrifices we make on the closed LIVE platform, it's supposed to be an experience free from the everyday burdens of a PC.

Their full statement after the jump.

Microsoft has confirmed reports of certain individuals taking over subscribers' Xbox LIVE accounts through fraudulent behavior.

We've taken action to help protect our subscribers' accounts and are working with our call center staff to help reduce the likelihood of future incidents. This includes:

• Retraining all customer support representatives.
• Examining the policies and processes for account recovery.
• Continuing to monitor the situation closely to take appropriate action as necessary.

In addition to these steps, we continue to recommend that our customers always be careful with whom they share information while connected to Xbox LIVE.

We will reimburse any customer whose account has been compromised in this fashion. If they have lost content such as Xbox Live Arcade games, we will provide the customer with replacement content at no charge.

This was not a failure of software technology. We want to reassure our customers that there has been no security breach of the Xbox LIVE network or of Bungie.net.

Customers who have any concerns about their account should visit www.xbox.com/support, click on the link titled "Troubleshooting Access to your Xbox Live Account," and perform the steps outlined there."

Xbox Live Abusers Gone Phishing [nextgeneration]

PS3 Home - Security, Age Verification, and Booze [Ps3 Home]

PlayNoEvil has an interesting meditation up on some remarks made by Peter Edward, director of the Home platform for PS3, relating to some of their advertisers (Marlboro, Durex, and Bacardi - woo!), and tangentially, some of challenges of age verification and the threat of having to move and buy a new PS3 if your account is banned for not being able to play well with others (are we looking at another minor PR disaster when someone buys a refurbished PS3 that comes pre-banned?).

There was an implication that [banning by machine] is a much superior capability to other online services like Second Life. However, the PS3 has the advantage of being a hardware based system. Also, many online communities do support robust banning systems. Particularly, services that are targeted at children. Since the Playstation Network service is not a "for fee" service, identity and registration information could be weak. Also, banning is kind of a strange response for a service that seems to be focused on selling digitally distributed items (games, movies, music, etc.). It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The gamesindustry.biz discussion with Edward that PlayNoEvil links to has the original snips on 'branding for mature users' and the 'you complain, we ban' system of policing they're intending on implementing.

Sony's PS3 Home