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Excellent point. Yet, someone still has to make the viruses that the hired engineers/hackers fight. It'd be rather ironic if the very engineers who create viruses are also hired by virus companies to quarantine and destroy them.

Actually, that's rather brilliant.

Wow. I would not be surprised. Wow lol
 
Why didn't you do this as routine maintenance to prevent anything like this from happening to this severity? Sure you can't make it 100% immune from attacks, but you could make the data 98% safe.

It seems you don't have much experience building secure websites. What you do is building security in depth. You make sure nobody can get in, and you make sure there's nothing to see if somebody gets in. You always assume that someone _might_ figure out how to get around one defense, and have a second defense in place. That's what Apple did, and it worked. Most likely the attacker didn't get access to anything, and what there was to access was encrypted.

If you knew of ways to get past one of the defences, you would of course fix it. Somebody got in, which means they used a method that wasn't anticipated and couldn't have been fixed. Because of "security in depth", that breach didn't gain the attacker anything, but now Apple knows what they did and makes the necessary changes. It is quite possible that Apple's security developers have from time to time found possible attacks and quietly fixed them; you wouldn't notice it.

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Why didn't these hackers go after the NSA? They already have all Apple Dev Center data and lots more..

That's of course nonsense, and you know that. And if it was true, you wouldn't go after the NSA. You go after someone who can't lock you away for the rest of your sad life without a court case.


this shows that apple is no longer reliable and it may affect stocks greatly.
There goes the public trust...Apple....

Nonsense. There's security in depth in place. Someone got past one defense, was promptly detected, and other defenses stopped him. Exactly how it is supposed to work. Public trust is also based on how a company handles problems: Apple handled it by immediately shutting down the site, which is inconvenient, but the absolutely safe thing to do, and they promptly informed the affected people about what was going on. Others companies would have kept the site running, hoping that nothing else happens. That's the companies you can't trust.
 
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The "digital age" makes long for the days before wireless communication (other than mobile phones) and servers filled with endless information and data. There was a time in my youthful naivety that I would state, "Let them have my information, I have nothing to hide." While I may not have anything to hide, it wasn't until my later years that I realized that wasn't the point.

Now it seems we can never turn back.

"Just remember, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour."
 
I don't know what sort of courtesy Apple will extend as a result of this, but if history is any guide (dot mac, mobile me) everyone will get a very generous extension; several months in the cases above.. for the inconvenience.

Of course that was when Steve Jobs was still around.
 
Surely in the interest of transparency they'd have told us about this on Friday as opposed to Sunday?

Perhaps they wanted to make sure they understood the issue completely before issuing a statement. Can you imagine the field day the press would have if Apple issued a statement saying they were hacked but didn't supply any details about the extent of the attack?
 
I don't know what sort of courtesy Apple will extend as a result of this, but if history is any guide (dot mac, mobile me) everyone will get a very generous extension; several months in the cases above.. for the inconvenience.

Of course that was when Steve Jobs was still around.

The people affected are developers. And developers know how the game works. They know that what Apple did was exactly the right thing to do. And Apple is generous; any app that would have been removed from the App Store because someone's developers license ran out will stay on the store for now.
 
I'm not normally one to step up and defend Apple, but in this case, sadly this is how things are now.

... Microsoft has been hacked ... numerous government websites have been hacked etc. etc.

Microsoft was hacked about 13 years ago, since then the only notorious microsoft hacking I'm aware of is when their Macs were hacked in their Mac business unit. AFAIK No information about Microsoft accounts have been hacked on any sort of decent scale.
 
The company notes that sensitive personal information was "encrypted and cannot be accessed" but that Apple's engineers "could not rule out the possibility" that developer names, mailing addresses and email addresses may have been accessed.

Hmm.

If sensitive personal information "cannot be accessed"... but "names and addresses may have been accessed"...

Then the logical conclusion is that names and addresses are not considered "sensitive personal information".

The "sensitive" category would probably be reserved for things like credit card numbers.
 
Apple has pretty good security, so it might have been quite a sophisticated effort to pull this off, maybe even involving state actors.

All this, and yet people are still foolishly attacking the NSA, who are being constantly vigilant in trying to find out where this stuff comes from.
 
You can completely overhaul something by working on it from a separate offline server, copying the data over, and then put up the Routine Maintenance screen while you change over to the new server (Or raid array) But because it was compromised, they took it down and will keep it down until they have a solution in place and everything all set.. Just like what happened to Sony during the PSN outage.

Your original quote was:

Why didn't you do this as routine maintenance...

in respsonse to Apple:

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

You seem to be under the impression that by putting up the "Routine Maintenance" sign, that would then make the task be considered part of "routine maintenance" work.
 
I'm under the inpression that the iOS dev team and the security team are both separate entities, each doing their own things...

Obviously they're different teams (although there's more than likely overlaps), but it'd be stupid for them to release the 4th beta. Sure the OTA would work, but actual developers need access to the 4th beta of Xcode for it to be of any worth. You need the developer website for this.
 
By coincident, my iMessage started to get spammed by @163 (huge & known Chinese spammer domain) since the past weekend. :eek:
 
It's just truly amazing how the comments of an article that brings such bad news for developers become a hate/fanboy-ism fest.
 
They are going to upgrade their server software? What are they running? Mac OS server or Windows?
 
It gave a huge boost to Sony's competitor Microsoft and its XBL service for a while.

All people talked about was about the hack.

True, but I debate how much of a boost. It's hard to switch services when you already invested money into a console, multiple games, and other digital content.

That will probably be the main deterrent in stopping Xbox One leakage over to the PS4, but since last gen games won't be able to play on the One, Microsoft effectively cut the ecosystem cord.

Besides, these are dev accounts. Most devs are tech savvy and understand the demons of the industry, and use the dev service to support their development (presumably for money). I don't see them turning tail from a market they're already in because of this.
 
Glad it was hacked. If it weren't, this would not have happened or seemed as important to do:

..we're completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database..
 
Apple has pretty good security, so it might have been quite a sophisticated effort to pull this off, maybe even involving state actors.

All this, and yet people are still foolishly attacking the NSA, who are being constantly vigilant in trying to find out where this stuff comes from.

IMO, this was well organized with large resources to get in. I'm very curious as to the hacker's location. Don't discount it being domestic for a second.

I'm sure Apple and the NSA have already "increased their transparency" on Fri/Sat.

"Trust the Government. It worked for the Indians." :apple:
 
I hope everybody uses a separate AppleID for AppStore business.

Unfortunately, due to the way Apple's implemented it, it means you can't use 2-factor authentication unless you have a personal dedicated development iOS device.

On the other hand, even if your account is compromised the damage is limited.
 
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