ABC Island, a Sandals for Vandals
by John Paczkowski
Posted on May 24, 2007 at 12:07 PM PT
ABC has bombed again. This time, however, it’s not the American network in a Nielsen cave, but the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that has fallen prey to Second Life vandals who trashed ABC Island, leaving a vast crater where the company’s virtual oasis once stood. ABC Amphitheatre, the Ecohouse, Dreamtime Cove and the Island’s favorite destination, the Sandbox–all of them destroyed. “It looks like we’ve had some enormous cyber-bomb set off on our site,” Craig Preston, head of technology for ABC Innovation, told the Australian. “Somebody has nuked us in some way, shape or form, and they’ve obliterated almost every object on the site.”
ABC, which reportedly spent a fair sum of money on the island’s creation, plans to spend a bit more recreating it–and securing against future attacks. “When we opened ABC Island we knew that many challenges would present themselves and that by being the first Australian media organization to venture into the world, we were entering uncharted territory,” said Abigail Thomas, head of strategic development at ABC Innovation. “We will now be looking closely at security measures, investigating how the hackers breached the existing security and, of course, making changes to protect the island’s future development.”
