New Details Emerge on Security Researcher Potentially Responsible for Dev Center Outage

[MacRumors]

Early this morning, independent security researcher Ibrahim Balic speculated that he may be responsible for the security breach that caused an extended outage of Apple's Developer Center, which has been offline since late last week.

Despite Balic's claim that he reported his findings directly to Apple and did not intend to act maliciously, information that he gave in an interview with TechCrunch suggests somewhat questionable behavior.

Balic, who has reported 13 different bugs to Apple, originally discovered an iAd Workbench vulnerability on June 18 that allowed a request sent to the server to be manipulated. This security hole could be used to acquire the names and email addresses of iTunes users (even non-developers). After finding the loophole, Balic wrote a Python script to harvest data from the vulnerability and then displayed it in a YouTube video, which may have put him on Apple's radar.

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A screenshot of Balic's submitted bug reports. Click to enlarge.​

In addition to the iAd Workbench bug, Balic also discovered and submitted a report on a bug that caused the Dev Center site to be vulnerable to a stored XSS attack. While Balic says that it was possible to access user data by exploiting the Dev Center issue, he claims that he did not do so. According to TechCrunch, Balic's YouTube video (which has since been removed) contained full names and email addresses, and it is unclear where they originated.

It's too bad, though, that the video seemed so definitive: After showing off images of Apple's downed Dev Center and the company's official response, Balic then showed a slew of files that seem to contain full names and email addresses. It seems pretty damning, but Balic says that he never went after the Developer Center site directly, and all that user information he highlighted came from the iAd Workbench. Two separate bugs paved the way for one very confusing video.

Balic claims that he harvested data on 73 Apple employees and 100,000 other iTunes users, but he says that he did not use the Developer Center exploit that he first submitted on July 16, instead garnering the data from the iAd Workbench issue.

TechCrunch reports that the data that Balic gained (limited to email addresses and Apple IDs) may have come from non-developer accounts, though Apple has clearly stated that only developer accounts were affected.

Throughout our conversation, Balic maintained that he was only ever trying to help Apple. When asked why he downloaded all that user data rather than simply reporting the bug, Balic says he just wanted to see how "deep" he could go. If he wanted to do ill, he says, he wouldn't have reported everything he found. For what it's worth, he also says he never attempted to reset anyone's password -- the farthest he went was to email one of the addresses he had discovered and ask if it was really the person's Apple ID. Balic didn't get a response.

Due to the ambiguity of the source of the names and email addresses shown in Balic's video, it is unclear whether or not he caused the Dev Center outage by manipulating the iAd Workbench bug and it is equally unclear what his intentions were.

Article Link: New Details Emerge on Security Researcher Potentially Responsible for Dev Center Outage

 

[Mrg02d]

Good job balic! Now no beta 4!

 

[nepalisherpa]

We don't know what his intentions were but dang it, no beta 4! And how are we supposed to believe him that he did nothing with the data or that he only extracted so much data?

 

[keysofanxiety]

"If he wanted to do ill, he says, he wouldn't have reported everything he found."

Something about this just seems a little fishy, I dunno. If I was to break into your house but steal nothing, that would still be a crime. Especially knowing how seriously Apple take security, I think there's the potential for this to balloon out of control.

 

[gotluck]

Questionable behavior but not full on malicious

 

[mr.steevo]

Sounds like he's Guilty!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejizOV-IQEM

 

[ridwan47]

Niko Bellic ? Let's go bowling...

 

[mklaman]

just as we were supposed to start beta-testing our app today! @outdoorsyApp

 

[HiRez]

On one hand, it's good that this guy discovered these holes, because his intentions seem somewhat benign. Lots of other entities out there I can imagine would use this stuff for more nefarious purposes and things could be much worse.

On the other hand, I'm pissed because I've been locked out of the iOS dev center for 4 1/2 days now, with perhaps the most major iOS update ever coming up soon, and I'm stuck at multiple points on my apps because of that (for example, I cannot enable Game Center on my apps, can't create new provisioning profiles, can't download dev tools or documentation, and worst of all, cannot get access to new betas of iOS SDK and Xcode that were probably about ready to release today).

It still does not seem like Apple is taking security seriously enough, this never should have happened (they were warned) and it should not take a critical developer component down for what may be over a week.

 

[KdParker]

Seems like just another hacker that got caught.

 

[buckyballs]

Really annoyed how this delayed beta 4.

More importantly, developers can't provision devices

 

[chrono1081]

The fact that he showed names and email addresses of his victims makes me not believe a single word about him not being malicious.

A smart and caring person would have blurred out names and addresses in their video.

 

[jonnysods]

I'm glad it was an honest hacker!!

 

[Konrad9]

The fact that he showed names and email addresses of his victims makes me not believe a single word about him not being malicious.

A smart and caring person would have blurred out names and addresses in their video.

A smart and caring company would have made it unnecessary for him to go public.

 

[gotluck]

The fact that he showed names and email addresses of his victims makes me not believe a single word about him not being malicious.

A smart and caring person would have blurred out names and addresses in their video.

He's somewhere in the middle. Your typical malicious Chinese hacker would have done far worse.

His fault is that he wants recognition and therefore grabbed hard proof. Isn't this how you get a job in infosec these days?

 

[flipperfeet]

"F-U innocent parties, I want to be notorious"

The fact that he showed names and email addresses of his victims makes me not believe a single word about him not being malicious.

A smart and caring person would have blurred out names and addresses in their video.

My thoughts exactly, even blurring those details he could have demonstrated the same level of access and put the spotlight on Apple. Would he be so cavalier if his personal details were shown?

 

[Deedlez]

Grrr. My provisioning profile has just expired, now sat dead in the water waiting for the Dev Centre to come back up.

This chap sounds dubious, almost like he started to hack around and download what he could then chickened out and pretended he was doing it for good reasons. Hmmm. Either way, whoever caused the outage, they're costing me time (and therefore money!)

 

[Rogifan]

Seems to me this guy just wants attention and is clearly getting his wish.

 

[chrono1081]

A smart and caring company would have made it unnecessary for him to go public.

I don't think you quite realize how security breaches work. He gave apple only a few hours, they probably didn't even get to his request in that time.

He went public immediately after. Real life is not like the movies, you need to find out how much data someone had access to before releasing a statement which takes time. Apple did it pretty quickly IMO.

Releasing something saying "WE GOT HACKED" without knowing anything about it is not only a PR disaster, but its not the right way to do things because people will want answers and you won't be able to give it to them without knowing what the hacker got ahold of.

 

[0160033]

For what it's worth, he also says he never attempted to reset anyone's password -- the farthest he went was to email one of the addresses he had discovered and ask if it was really the person's Apple ID.

This is actually worrisome because I did receive an email about having my password reset several times. I was hoping it had to do with this guy and his benevolent bug discovery but clearly there is another culprit at hand...

 

[thedude33]

Hmmmm...

This doesn't seem like normal white hat hacking. He stole and may have kept the emails and usernames, he didn't directly contact Apple, and he may have done this.
On the other hand, it may have been the only way to get Apple's attention. If you submit an idea, bug, or tip, they won't read it for a while. The YouTube video sure got their attention.

 

[petsounds]

"He just wanted to see how deep he could go" ...that's not a white-hat hacker. And posting a YouTube video of your attack is not the way to deal with a serious security threat like this. This guy is at the least naive and immature, and at worst malicious. In either case, he's not a professional researcher, he's just a jackass looking for fame.

 

[macsrcool1234]

He should have given Apple more time before resorting to doing this. At least a week to respond, it's a large company.

 

[4TheLoveOfTech]

I'm glad it was an honest hacker!!

Go to his Twitter page. He's going to give an interview with CNN.

Should be interesting.

 

[kcmac]

"I did not inhale!"