Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

After Hacking Attack, Apple’s Dev Center Site Is Up and Running Again

Eight days after taking it down in response to a security breach, Apple has restored the website for its Developer Center.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. But the entry page of the site was clearly visible this afternoon. Some sections, like forums, were still offline. Certificates, identifiers and profiles were back online.

An email circulated to Apple developers said, “Thank you for bearing with us while we bring these important systems back online. We will continue to update you with our progress.” It has also added a system status page so members can keep track of what’s back and working and what’s not.

Access to the site had been curtailed for several days as Apple investigated the circumstances of a security incident said to have occurred on July 18.

The company said in an email to its developer community (see below) three days after the incident took place that the site had been accessed by what it called “an intruder.”

Apple said in the original email disclosing the breach that it would be “completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database.” It hasn’t gone into any further detail about the nature of the attack.

The Apple developer site grants access to iOS 7, OS X Mavericks and other software development tools. When it first went down it was marked with a notice saying it was down for maintenance. A later notice apologized that maintenance was taking longer than expected. Developers were told that memberships that would have expired during the downtime had been automatically extended.

Since extended downtime of this sort is rare with Apple, people in the dev community naturally began to wonder what was up. Apple finally came clean about the attempted attack and said that “…we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed.” Still no word on that.

Here’s the full text of the email sent around to developers.

Developer Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles Now Available

We appreciate your patience as we work to bring our developer services back online. Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, software downloads, and other developer services are now available. If you would like to know the availability of a particular system, visit our status page.

If your program membership expired or is set to expire during this downtime. It will be 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 bearing with us while we bring these important systems back online. We will continue to update you with our progress.

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