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

Monday July 22, 2013 7:49 am PDT by Eric Slivka

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.

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.

Top Rated Comments

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Konrad9

83 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.

Rating: 44 Votes

napabar

83 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.

Rating: 43 Votes

Reason077

83 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.

Rating: 31 Votes

Michaelgtrusa

83 months ago

This needed to happen.

Rating: 30 Votes

millarj

83 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.

Rating: 27 Votes

recklesslife85

83 months ago

Couldnt he have done this after Beta 4 release - DAMN HIM! ;)

Rating: 26 Votes

ka-spot

83 months ago

And what he is researching for? The new Haswell retinas?

Rating: 10 Votes

bacaramac

83 months ago

Some of the people are just to dumb for their own self. They do one thing good, act dumb.

I mean seriously, if you want to hack something, talk to the company and get their approval to "test" their systems on a site that is not the actual public site or something like that. If they (Apple) refuses to acknowledge, then take it to the news and make it public, that way Apple has to do something. Don't just hack and say sorry. Just wow.

Rating: 9 Votes