Virtual worlds are under surveillance by both U.S. and U.K. spies according to various media outlet reports last Monday, December 9.

The reports say that U.S. and U.K. espionage agencies have infiltrated virtual universes like Second Life and World of Warcraft with undercover agents to monitor online traffic.

The New York Times, the Guardian, and ProPublica, ran stories and reported that U.S. and U.K. spies spent years infiltrating online games to find terrorists or informants. The reports were based on the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower, setting a different take on contemporary espionage.

World of Warcraft and Second Life are popular virtual worlds that draw millions of users and players. Gamers would spend hours and hours either competing or transacting with other users. For example, World of Warcraft had almost 12 billion subscribers during the height of its popularity. Second Life, a virtual platform designed and created by Linden Labs, provide virtual lands users can optimize to design, create, or develop virtual economies for virtual transactions using a virtual currency known as Linden dollars.

The NSA and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), its U.K. counterpart, have been worried about the impact of such games to both countries national security. Both agencies see these virtual gaming platforms as good landscapes for terrorist who could use them to exchange information through in-game messages. According to the documents used by media outlets, the NSA said that intelligence targets could use virtual worlds to "hide in plain sight."

In a report by The New York Times, it published an 82-page document that said opponents could use virtual universes like World of Warcraft and Second Life to recruit new users and train them to use weapons virtually. It cited September 11, 2001 terrorists who used flight simulation software for training before carrying out the attacks.