Hackers penetrate website for Nokia developers

Nokia suffered an embarrassing security breach over the weekend when hackers penetrated one of its community websites and accessed names, email addresses, and other information belonging to developers of smartphone apps.

Nokia posted a message that warned developers that their information was exposed after hackers exploited a vulnerability that allowed them to carry out a SQL-injection attack.

“The database table records includes members' email addresses and, for fewer than 7% who chose to include them in their public profile, either birth dates, homepage URL or usernames for AIM, ICQ, MSN, Skype or Yahoo,” the Nokia advisory warned. “However, they do not contain sensitive information such as passwords or credit card details and so we do not believe the security of forum members' accounts is a risk. Other Nokia accounts are not affected.”

Nokia admins quickly fixed the bug that made the attack possible, but they soon took the developer community website offline pending a security assessment. At time of writing, the discussion boards weren't accessible. Nokia's advisory said the service would be restored as soon as possible.

Before the hacked site was closed, people visiting it were redirected to a website that showed an image of Homer Simpson smacking his head and exclaiming “D'Oh.” Below the image were the words “Worlds number 1 mobile company but not spending a dime for server security! FFS patch you security holes otherwise you will be just another antisec victim. No Dumping, No Leaking!”

The compromise came as hackers claimed to have attacked a database belonging to French telecom provider Orange.fr and leaked site and source code. ®