Visitors to Apple’s Web site following the announcement of the iPhone 4S reported site outages and ‘Access Denied’ messages on Tuesday afternoon. Though many assumed that increased traffic had created server issues, rumors circulated that that the site was the target of an attack.
The timing was undoubtedly poor for business, coming right on the heels of its Tuesday morning media event. A Who Is search revealed some questionable information, as well. Domain information for the site included:
- APPLE.COM.WAS.PWND.BY.M1CROSOFT.COM
- APPLE.COM.IS.OWN3D.BY.NAKEDJER.COM
- APPLE.COM.IS.0WN3D.BY.GULLI.COM
Whether this suspicious domain info is at all related to Anonymous Sri Lanka’s inclusion of Apple in its DNS snooping attack in August is unclear. It seems likely, though, especially given the aforementioned domain information, that the site outages were no coincidence. If this was indeed a hacking attempt, we’re still waiting for someone to claim it.
After the initial outage, reports came in Tuesday evening of a potential second wave of ‘Access Denied’ messages.
Did you experience any trouble with Apple’s Web site today? How long did it take you to access it? Let us know your experience in the comments!