Apple Discussions Temporarily Pulled Following Hack

Apple Discussions has been the target of a malicious attack over the past weekend, with administrators in Cupertino pulling the forum on Saturday to isolate and resolve the problem.

Reportedly, users trying to log into Apple Discussions would be able to read through all the available threads, which showed the message "for fun, by tojen," at the top of the page.

No other content was included by the hackers, according to an AppleInsider report, which also posts relevant imagery.

According to the source, the forum appeared to remain offline throughout the weekend for users accessing the discussions via a a saved bookmark, or by manually entering the discussions.apple.com URL.

Direct links to discussion forum threads, however, continued to work as expected. Entering the forum through Apple's support links also appeared to work in a normal manner, says the site.

These events indicate the attack may have targeted external DNS servers, or Apple's content delivery partners.

Users were being directed to either incorrect or outdated addresses of compromised servers that had been taken offline, the report notes.

A number of customers possessing what is known as an “Apple ID” have been the target of malicious attacks in July, with Apple pulling iTunes store content after a hacker was able to make purchases using customers’ credentials.

Apple also reinforced Apple ID security by prompting users to edit their accounts, advising them to change their passwords.

Maintenance carried out by technicians in Cupertino on 8/12/2010 between 22:00-23:30 PT rendered subscribers unable to sync content between their computers, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch or view their contacts and calendars at me.com.

Normal service was restored soon, with Apple apologizing for any inconvenience.

For the customer’s protection, Apple may automatically disable an Apple ID if their account password is incorrectly entered numerous times. This affects some services users may access with said ID, such as accounts with Apple Photo Services, iTunes Store, and MobileMe.