Apple announced this week that their developer site had been compromised. The site was completely taken offline and is still down at the time of this article. The developer site is a communication and data portal that houses all the information necessary for development and publishing of iPad, iPhone, and OSX Applications. All of the developers have personal information stored on the site.
The forums for Ubuntu was breached this week as well. Usernames, Passwords, and Emails of all the users were stolen and the website was defaced.
Its important to note that both of these sites are not only mission critical to Apple and Canonical, but are critical to their customers as well. The effects of these breaches could be catastrophic in the long run. Both of these sites cannot be fixed with a quick patch; but instead require massive reengineering of the entire infrastructure. When the smokes clear, it is apparent that the costs will be enormous.
Security experts are working to help better understand the massive costs and impacts of security breaches. Mcafee researchers have released a report titled The Economic Impact of Cybercrime and Cyber Espionage. In this paper, they develop a model to explain the impacts of security breaches and how the impact compares to other illicit activity such as drug trafficking.
Resources:
Apple Developer Site Compromised – Threatpost Article
Apple App Store Reaches 40 Billion Downloads
