3D Virtual Worlds and Social Networking Sites are Targeted By Online Criminals

A six-month threat report released by computer security experts, Symantec, states: "There is an increasing trend towards attacks on social environments like Facebook and Linkedin, where the quality and quantity of private information is such that attacks can be more focused."

In other words, online criminals can incorporate information gathered from social networking sites and virtual worlds to add legimitacy to fraudelent emails by being highly specific in nature. By referencing a person's hobbies or past weekend activities in an email, an unsuspecting victim might be more likely to give access to their private banking account information.

While 3Dwalkthroughs.com certainly is not suprised that this type of activity is starting to become more prominent, we hope that it does not ultimately hinder the convergence of virtual worlds and social networking platforms. As we have been predicting for the past year, we believe it is just a matter of time before most online social platforms will involve the ability for avatars to walk through and interact in very realistic 3D environments. It will be a shame if the movment towards this convergence is slowed down because of a few "bad eggs".