Google Play’s app publishing system, called the Developer Console, crashed twice on Sunday.
The system crashed after a Turkish hacker brought it down, simply by uploading an app which exploited a vulnerability.
All developers have to use this system to upload their apps which are then published by Google at their App Store. Many of them complained at the Google Forums, that they could not access the service when they tried to upload their creations. The service was briefly restored on Monday, before it crashed again, no thanks to the same app.
CNN reports that new Android Apps and updates were inaccessible. The American News Company, spoke to the man who claimed to be behind the attack, Ibrahim Balic
“I didn’t have any malicious aim,” Balic told CNN. “I am so sorry for this damage.”
Balic had initially planned to test the vulnerability which he had found, and uploaded the app to test it, and claims he did not expect it to bring the entire system down. After Google had restored the service, he re-uploaded the app and crashed it again. This has not been well received from the developer community. He also said, that he had reached out to Google, but is yet to hear back.
Here is a Reddit thread where the hacker commented about it. Although his main comment was deleted, he has replied to a couple of comments from other users there.
The issue was fixed by Google yesterday.
via: CNN