Apple confirms its developer website was hacked

NDTV Correspondent, July 22, 2013

Apple has confirmed that the ongoing downtime on its developer website is an aftereffect of an intruder attempting to access personal information of its registered developers.

The Member Center on developer.apple.com lets registered Apple developers access the latest versions of iOS and Mac OS versions (including iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks beta), view developer documentation and other resources like WWDC videos, manage their submissions to the respective App Stores, and perform other activities. The Member Center has been down since Thursday for what initially seemed like regular maintenance, but as the downtime was extended, speculation emergedthat it may due to security issues.

Apple has now confirmed that security of its developer website was indeed compromised but assured that 'sensitive personal information' was encrypted and couldn't have been accessed by the intruder. However, Apple said, information like developers' names as well as mailing and email addresses may have been exposed.

Apple explained the extended downtime by saying it was using the opportunity to 'completely overhaul' its developer systems, though the company did not give a timeframe on when the website would be accessible again.

Here's Apple's statement in full.

We'll be back soon.

Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers' names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.

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.

If your program membership was set to expire during this period, it has been extended and your app will remain on the App Store. If you have any other concerns about your account, please contact us.

Thank you for your patience.