Apple Developer Center Outage Fixed 'Remote Code Execution' Flaw

Tuesday August 20, 2013 11:22 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple has released new details (via @cabel) on the security flaw that caused the Developer Center to be down for more than a week, noting via its Apple Web Server notifications page that a "remote code execution issue" was fixed.

On the site, Apple credits 7dscan.com and SCANV of www.knownsec.com for reporting the bug on July 18, which is the same day the Developer Center was taken offline. During the downtime, Apple reported that the Developer Center website had been hacked, with an intruder attempting "to secure personal information" from registered developers. The company noted that while sensitive information was encrypted, some developer names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been acquired.

The eight-day outage required a complete overhaul of Apple's developer systems and a restoration plan that slowly brought services back online.

While security researcher Ibrahim Balic speculated that he might have been behind the security breach, it is now clear that the issue he reported was unrelated to the major flaw that caused the downtime. Apple credits Ibrahim with reporting a separate iAd Workbench vulnerability on July 22. The vulnerability allowed Balic to obtain both names and Apple IDs of users.

applesecuritysite

On August 10, Apple reported that all of its developer services were back online, a full 23 days after the outage first occurred. As a result of the downtime, Apple gave all developers a one month extension on their developer memberships.

Top Rated Comments

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bbeagle

82 months ago

Glad its finally all resolved. I'm sure someone is trying to find the next venerability.

ven·er·a·ble (vnr--bl)
adj.
1. Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position.
2. Worthy of reverence, especially by religious or historical association: venerable relics.
3. Venerable Abbr. Ven. or V.
a. Roman Catholic Church Used as a form of address for a person who has reached the first stage of canonization.
b. Used as a form of address for an archdeacon in the Anglican Church or the Episcopal Church.

vener·a·ble·ness, vener·a·bili·ty n.
vener·a·bly adv.

Rating: 3 Votes

macsrcool1234

82 months ago

And you know this.... how exactly?

Key word, reported, but not confirmed. So, until that time I'll assume it is also a bug in OS X Server that needs addressing. However, I'll give the benefit of doubt and also throw in that it might be the software running on top of OS X.

Because he knows what he's talking about, unlike you. OSX Server is not designed for that kind of use and would crumble under the load.

Rating: 2 Votes

mdnz

82 months ago

OS X server has tons of memory overhead (like the GUI) and is not as scalable as some other solutions. Servers at enterprise level need to be as optimised for one job (granted, depends on the server) as much as possible to reduce overhead and costs.

Bottom line: If you need to host a website which has millions of viewers a day, it's just not efficient nor costfriendly do to it purely on OS X. Also one thing to add is if you look at their job applications for System administrator it's mostly for Solaris/Linux.

Rating: 2 Votes

jav6454

82 months ago

If they used OS X, I hope they released a patch for the system.

Rating: 2 Votes

Terrin

82 months ago

Think of readers whose first language isn't English. When you use unusual words with spelling that is not found in any dictionary, they can have a hard time finding out what you mean. Ibrahim Balic is quite possibly one of them.

Now whatever was said about him, he deserved it. He took actions that he shouldn't have taken and openly boasted about it. If you want to appear as the tough guy who brought Apple's developer site down, then you deserve anything that comes as a reaction.

I am confused. He did what all security researchers do. Namely try to find bugs. He then quietly reported the bugs to Apple. The site then went down the same day. The guy freaked thinking he was the cause. To try and cover himself he posted a video outlining what happened. He was clearly worried about Apple coming after him. Turns out Apple credited him with discovering another unrelated bug. The guy acted properly and never boasted.

Rating: 1 Votes

rdlink

82 months ago

Queue the, "Apple owes us more free time." rants.

Rating: 1 Votes

mdnz

82 months ago

If they used OS X, I hope they released a patch for the system.

Apple doesn't use OS X on their servers IIRC

Rating: 1 Votes

mdelvecchio

82 months ago

interesting. guess all that vitriol towards Ibrahim Balic was completely unnecessary, since he had nothing to do with it.

glad its all settled.

edit: mispelling of vitriol.

Rating: 1 Votes

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