Are Apple developers on the hacker hit list?

Note: this post is condensed from an article written for Digital New Asia.

Apple's developer website for its Mac, iPhone and iPad products was taken offline about two weeks ago; shortly afterwards, Apple released a statement saying that the site had been suffered an intrusion.

Soon after, a grey hat Turkish security researcher, Ibrahim Balic, in London claimed responsibility for the intrusion in a video posted on his YouTube channel, in which he claimed that he had filed bug reports prior to the takedown of the website.

Although there has been no further comments or statements from Apple about Balic's claim, Apple does seem to be taking the occurrence seriously and is currently still working restoring their web services.

Now the issue is — why are developers, particularly iOS developers, being targeted now more than ever? The intrusion on the developer site, though allegedly done with benign intent, brings greater attention to the importance of securing developer accounts, and the potential consequences if such accounts are compromised and misused.

This is in light of an attack earlier this year on the popular iOS Mobile developers' forum iPhoneDevSDK, which successfully garnered victims from the big tech companies, like Apple, Facebook and Twitter and so on.

Are Apple developers on the hacker hit list? | F-Secure Weblog

Tumblr security lapse - iPhone and iPad users update your passwords now!

Tumblr has released a "very important" update for their iPad and iPhone apps following what they describe as a "security lapse".It appears that passwords were being sent over the internet unencrypted, making it easy for anyone with bad intentions and a little technical knowledge to harvest Tumblr users' login details.

The short post by Derek Gottfrid, Tumblr's vp of product, gives very little away but does say that passwords may have been compromised by being "sniffed in transit"

Short post by Derek Gotffrid

Tumblr security lapse - iPhone and iPad users update your passwords now! | The Naked Security

Super Mario Zips Through A Loophole In Apple's App Restrictions

Lots of gamers have long wanted to play classics like Pokémon and Super Mario on the iPhone. Unfortunately, publishers like Nintendo have no desire to undermine their own handheld ecosystem. Those determined to bring GameBoy functionality to their iDevices have pretty much been forced to jailbreak them.

Super Mario zips through a loophole

No longer, at least for the moment. Thanks to an unexpected loophole in Apple's developer restrictions, it's currently possible for anyone to install a fully functioning Game Boy Advance emulator on the iPhone or iPad for free—without jailbreaking their device. Emulator developer Riley Testut created the app, called GBA4iOS, by basing it on another popular jailbreak emulator called gpSphone.

Super Mario Zips Through A Loophole In Apple's App Restrictions | ReadWrite