An Australian teenager has pleaded guilty after hacking Apple’s IT systems several times over the course of a year and downloading 90GB of content.
The 16-year-old Melbourne schoolboy, who can’t be named for legal reasons, is said to have accessed customer accounts but no personal data. In fact, it’s unclear what content was taken in the raids, but the stolen data was reportedly stored in a folder named “hacky hack hack.”
However, he appears not to have taken any steps to hide his identity. Apple notified the FBI of the unauthorized intrusion, and the Feds in turn contacted the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which obtained a warrant to raid the family home.
On doing so they reportedly found two Apple laptops with serial numbers matching the devices used to obtain authorization keys to access the tech giant’s network. The boy’s IP address also tallied with the attacker’s, as did a seized mobile phone and hard drive, as well as the hacking software found on one of the laptops.
Lawyers for the teen argued that he carried out the unauthorized intrusions because he was a fan of the company and dreamed of working there one day, according to The Age.
"At Apple, we vigilantly protect our networks and have dedicated teams of information security professionals that work to detect and respond to threats,” Apple said in a statement.
“We regard the data security of our users as one of our greatest responsibilities and want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised."
The boy is set to be sentenced next month.