Researcher Takes Credit for Security Breach of Apple's Developer Center - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Researcher Takes Credit for Security Breach of Apple's Developer Center

The Next Web points to a comment on a TechCrunch article taking credit for last week's unauthorized access of Apple's Developer Center last week. The comment comes from independent security researcher Ibrahim Balic, who claims that his effort was not intended to be malicious and that he reported his findings to Apple just hours before the developer site was taken down by the company.

In total I have found 13 bugs and have reported through http://bugreport.apple.com. The bugs are all reported one by one and Apple was informed. I gave details to Apple as much as I can and I’ve also added screenshots.

One of those bugs have provided me access to users details etc. I immediately reported this to Apple. I have taken 73 users details (all apple inc workers only) and prove them as an example.

apple_dev_site_back_soon_hack
Balic claims to have accessed details on over 100,000 users, but only released to Apple details on 73 of its own employees in order to prove the seriousness of the issue.

I have emailed and asked if I am putting them in any difficulty so that I can give a break to my research. I have not gotten any respond to this… I have been waiting since then for them to contact me, and today I’m reading news saying that they have been attacked and hacked. In some of the media news I watch/read that whether legal authorities were involved in its investigation of the hack. I’m not feeling very happy with what I read and a bit irritated, as I did not done this research to harm or damage. I didn’t attempt to publish or have not shared this situation with anybody else.

Balic's tactics and motives have, however, been questioned by some, with scattered reports suggesting an unusually high level of password reset requests on Apple developers' accounts over the past few days.

Apple's Developer Center remains down today, some four days after the company took it down in order to investigate the breach, update its software, and rebuild its developer database.

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
Apple Logo Sketch Feature

Apple Has Now Unveiled Eight New Products This Month

Tuesday March 17, 2026 9:25 am PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping eight new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, and now the AirPods Max 2 this week. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as the iPhone 16e, but it gains Apple's...
ios 26 4 yellow

Here Are Apple's Release Notes for iOS 26.4

Wednesday March 18, 2026 11:56 am PDT by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, which means we're going to see a public launch as soon as next week. The RC versions of the software include Apple's official release notes, giving us final details on what's included in the update. Apple Music - Playlist Playground (beta) generates a playlist from your...

Top Rated Comments

165 months ago
And why exactly did it "need" to happen?

Because Apple is clearly not keeping it's security systems up to par, and it's better for someone to do this and make it public, than for someone to do this and steal and sell as much information as he could.
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
napabar Avatar
165 months ago
Well if it didn't happen Apple wouldn't have taken measures to improve security. Pretty straightforward.
OK. No problem then. I'll be over tonight to break into your house. I'm not a thief. I just want to make sure your dwelling is secure.
Score: 43 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Reason077 Avatar
165 months ago
The most amazing revelation with this story that is suggests someone at Apple actually reads bug reports submitted through bugreport.apple.com!

This seems completely contrary to my own experience - perhaps it's actually worth reporting bugs to Apple after all.
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
165 months ago
This needed to happen.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
165 months ago
"Security researcher" Yeah, that's it. Is the guy "testing" my front door with a crowbar also a security researcher?

It is nice that he gave apple a couple of hours to respond. Classy of 'im.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
165 months ago
Couldnt he have done this after Beta 4 release - DAMN HIM! ;)
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)