Cyber Criminals Hit Apple’s Developer Website

Apple (AAPL) has confirmed that hackers had attacked its Developer Center website, according to reports, and while acknowledging the intruders may have gotten away with names and email addresses, the company insisted that encrypted, sensitive information remained beyond the culprits' reach.

Developers use the site to manage their accounts, handle programming and app distribution issues and gain access to the vendor’s forums and API documentation. Apple said it took the site offline July 18 as a precautionary measure, but in doing so initially without explanation it prompted a notable amount of speculation that remained unaddressed until July 21.

Apple now says in response to the security vulnerability it is renovating its developer systems, reconstructing its entire developer database and updating its server software. So far, the vendor has not supplied developers with a date when the site will return.

In an email to developers on Sunday, Apple wrote:

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.

According to a Macworld report, no customer information was compromised in the attack and the hackers did not gain access to app code or to servers where app information is housed. Apple did not disclose whether it has asked involved legal authorities to investigate.