The Australian teenager who hacked into Apple’s servers and downloaded sensitive data has been given probation in place of a jail sentence.
The verdict was announced on Thursday. The teenager, who carried out the hacking between June 2015 and April 2017, has not been named because their identity as a juvenile offender is protected under Australian law. They were 16-years-old at the time that the first hacking incident took place.
“Your offending is serious,” the magistrate told the teenager. “It was sustained, sophisticated, and a successful attack on the security of a major multinational corporation.”
No conviction has been recorded against the teenager. They pled guilty to two charges, and have been given an eight-month probation order.
Hacky hack hack
The teenager downloaded 90GB of secure files from Apple. The information was uncovered in a raid on his family home in Melbourne. It was stored in a computer folder titled, “Hacky hack hack.” The teenager said he selected Apple as a company to hack because he was such a big fan (?) of the company.
The case first came to light when Apple discovered the hack and passed details on to the FBI, who subsequently shared them with Australian authorities.
The court was told that the hacker managed to use security keys which “worked flawlessly” to access Apple’s information. Apple hasn’t revealed exactly what data was stolen, although it said that customers’ personal data was not compromised.
Source: Bloomberg
