GitHub has denied hack rumors, following a bizarre disclosure that reportedly showed the source code of GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise portals.
The "alleged" source code was leaked to the DMCA section of GitHub.
The leak appears to have been made by GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. However, in a message posted on YCombinator's Hacker News portal, Friedman denied that he made the leak or that there was any kind of hack on GitHub.
Friedman said that the “leaked source code” did not cover all of GitHub’s code, but only GitHub Enterprise Server. This is a version of GitHub Enterprise that companies can run on their on-premise servers in case they need to store their source code locally for security (but still benefit from GitHub Enterprise’s features).
Friedman admitted that this source code was not due to a current hack, but had been leaked months ago, due to a platform (GitHub engineers “accidentally sent a portion of the GitHub Enterprise Server source code to some customers”).
However, Friedman promised that GitHub was going to fix two bugs that the person appears to have exploited to make this leak. With the fix, it would prevent unauthorized users from linking their code to other people's projects via fake identities.
“In short: everything is fine, the situation is normal,” Friedman said.
This isn't the first time something like this has happened
This isn't the first time something like this has happened with GitHub. One of the two bugs was exploited a few days earlier, when a security researcher uploaded the youtube-dl library source code to GitHub's DMCA section.
The leak appears to be a form of protest against GitHub's decision to ban those using the youtube-dl library.
According to ZDNet, the leaker did not provide an explanation for his actions, but it is believed that he leaked the GitHub Enterprise Server source code to protest the removal of youtube-dl, a project that allows users to download audio and video from YouTube and other services (the removal was decided after the RIAA complained about piracy of its songs via youtube-dl).
Since last week, hundreds of other users have been re-uploading the youtube-dl code to their own accounts , prompting the RIAA to take action against them as well. GitHub has warned users not to do so, as they risk being banned.
