Apple admits its developer site was hacked and is being rebuilt

Apple admitted that its site for developers was attacked by an intruder last week. The company ensured that the site remained down even while it tried to

Nishtha Kanal|Jul 22, 2013, 13:17:37 IST

Apple has admitted that its site for developers was attacked by an intruder last week. The company ensured that the site remained down even while it tried to overhaul security on the site till early this morning.

In a note addressed to developers, Apple announced that an intruder attempted to access personal information of registered developers from the website. While sensitive personal information was encrypted and could not be accessed, Apple has not been able to rule out the possibility that names, mailing addresses and email addresses of some developers could have been accessed.

Apple ended up shutting down the developer website on Thursday and had been working “round the clock” to ensure that the breach was addressed. “In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we're completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the developer website up again soon.”

Website was facing downtime to combat the "hack"

The site seems to be up and running right now, but was reportedly facing downtime till Sunday. In a statement, Apple assured users that the company’s developer website was “not associated with any customer information” and that customer information was “securely encrypted”.

The company informed developers during the downtime that if their memberships were about to expire during the period the site was down, it would be extended and apps of such developers would remain on the App Store. Of course, this was a small consolation for developers who regularly depended on the website for their documentation and downloads. This, especially since the latest versions of iOS 7 and OS X are about to be released, does not bode well.