Second Life hampers staff productivity

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Employees spending time on virtual worlds could hinder an organisation's productivity, according to experts.

Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos, said people getting hooked on playing Second Life are affecting their company's productivity.

"IT departments are concerned that workers may be so keen to log on to Second Life and other virtual worlds that there will not only be a productivity hit but also a potential security issue," said Theriault. "If users cannot be trusted to act responsibly on corporate computers, then system administrators will need to enforce policies through technology.

She said that for businesses operating in the real world, users playing online games can seriously impact on performance, drain network resources and put corporate data at risk.

A recent poll by the anti-virus company found that 90 per cent of IT administrators wanted the ability to block the unauthorised use of games at work, with 62 per cent indicating this was an essential tool to maintain productivity.

She added that hackers have already focused efforts on gleaning sensitive information from players to commit identity fraud. Last September, hackers accessed a database holding information about 650,000 users of the game. This information included addresses, passwords and encrypted credit card details.

Theriault said businesses needed to implement a consolidated security solution to protect all possible routes of infection to the corporate network, as well as controlling which websites and online applications can be accessed from work PCs.

As reported on IT PRO, Second Life became infected with the "Grey Goo" worm that managed to bring the game's servers to a virtual standstill.

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