Apple: Developer site targeted in security attack, still down

Apple says its developer site was targeted in an attack, and that any information that was taken was encrypted. The site remains down.

(Credit: CNET)

Apple's site for developers was attacked by an intruder last week, the company said on Sunday.

In a note to developers, the company said that an "intruder" tried to gain access to developer information, prompting the company to take the service down. That information was encrypted, Apple said, however it was keeping the site down while security is being hardened.

Apple sent the following to developers on Sunday, detailing some of what happened:

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.

Apple's developer site is home to software downloads, documentation and forums for third-party software developers. The site became inaccessible to registered developers last Thursday, causing angst for users who could not access those features. On Friday the company noted that it would be extending membership periods to cover the outage, and that any published software would not be removed.

The attack comes as Apple's gearing up for two new major releases of iOS and OS X in the fall. Developers have been readying their software for the new versions of those operating systems in time for their official release, which Apple has said will come in the fall.

The outage sparked concerns about there being a larger, behind the scenes security issue. Those concerns were amplified by scattered reports from users saying they had received password reset e-mails, suggesting others were attempting to gain access to their Apple ID accounts.

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