Apple faced a little bit of a surprise recently. The company that designs and sells consumer electronics and computer has come to know of a bug that allowed its customers to get apps for free. This bug has been discovered by a Russian hacker, ZonD80, who posted a video on YouTube showing how to get apps featured in Apple’s store that too without paying the required sum. In lieu to his discovery, the hacker has also started a website, where he is asking for donations to support his work.
Apple’s spokeswoman stunned by the discovery said, “The security of the app store is incredibly important to us and the developer community. We take reports of fraudulent activity seriously and we are investigating.”
In one of its report, Information Week has mentioned that the hacker said that he has received a takedown notice from Apple asking him to take down his Web site.
The report also mentioned that the hack works on iOS versions 3.0 to the as-yet-unreleased 6.0. However, it also mentioned that it doesn’t work on all mobile applications.
MacWorld, which largely depends on Apple for security and payments on the hack, said that this could seriously hurt app developers.
A developer from MacWorld, Marco Tabini, cited that Apple has done a good job of patching up rocky situations with developers over this sort of thing in the past, and that he expects this won’t damage that relationship too much. He did note that more developers should take the time to set up their own validation systems for in-app payments, but also said that Apple has to give smaller developers the confidence that they don’t have to be cryptology experts to feel safe on the App Store.
