The giant technology firm also announced a month-long extension in membership of developer teams. The intention was to offset all possible disruptions that may have been caused by the downtime, which lasted more than three weeks.
As the company announced, the restoration of the site came in batches. It first restored certificates, forums, identifiers and profiles, libraries, and bug reporter. On the second batch, it brought back software downloads. On the final phase of the effort, Xcode Automatic Configuration as well as access program renewal and enrollment were restored.
Temporary shut down
Apple switched off its software developer’s site last July 18 immediately after it detected that the Website was hacked. The technology firm said it discovered that an intruder attempted to obtain information from the site. The company admitted that the hacker might have extracted some data, including a list of developers’ names and email addresses. However, it gave assurance that unauthorized access to sensitive personal data was prevented as those are located in an encrypted site.
The company was quiet for a while following the temporary shutdown of the Developer Center. But it released a statement explaining the action a few hours after the site went offline. According to a third-party report, a Turkish security researcher posted the security bug that may have led to the site’s downtime. However, there was no confirmation from Apple about the accuracy of this information.
Restoration in phases
It brought back some major components of the portal back online on July 26. Among the first features that were restored were Certificates, identifiers and profiles, software downloads, and a few other developer services. That time, the company apologized that it had to bring back services in phases until all components are fully restored. It did not give a timetable for the effort. However, it promised to make appropriate adjustments to membership durations in consideration of the downtime.
Logically, software developers who use the site for their projects were temporarily disallowed to test new apps especially on the pre-release versions of Apple’s upcoming operating system, which is expected to be released in September. The downtime came at a time when the company was motivating more developers to create apps for the new iOS and Mac OS X.
