Court hears that Australian teenager hacked Apple, The Age reports

Apple CEO Tim
Cook.
Getty

• An Australian teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking
  Apple, stealing 90 gigabytes of secure files, and accessing
  customer accounts.
• The 16-year-old broke into Apple’s mainframe several
  times over the course of a year, according to The Age, and
  stored hacking instructions on his laptop under a folder named
  “hacky hack hack.”
• Apple identified and reported the hack to the FBI. It
  said “at no point during this incident” was personal user data
  compromised.

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An Australian teenager managed to hack Apple, steal 90 gigabytes
of secure files, and access customer accounts, a court has heard,
according to The Age.

The Australian newspaper reported on the hearing, which took
place at a children’s court in Melbourne on Thursday, and has
prompted Apple into issuing a statement reassuring users that
their data is safe.

The Age said the 16-year-old — who cannot be named for legal
reasons — broke into Apple’s mainframe several times over the
course of a year, using a system of “computerised tunnels and
online bypassing systems.”

He downloaded secure files and accessed customer accounts, using
instructions stored on his Apple laptops, seized in a raid on his
suburban home, under a folder named “hacky hack hack.”

Apple detected his presence and reported the teenager to the FBI,
who in turn passed the case to Australian police. The suspect has
pleaded guilty, The Age said, and Reuters reported that he will be
sentenced on September 20.

The teenager’s lawyer reportedly said he targeted Apple because
he is an admirer of the trillion-dollar company and hopes to work
for it one day. He is said to be well-known in the international
hacking community.

Business Insider has contacted Apple for comment. In a statement
to Reuters and The Guardian, the company
sought to play down the impact of the hack.

“At Apple, we vigilantly protect our networks and have dedicated
teams of information security professionals that work to detect
and respond to threats,” a spokesman said.

“In this case, our teams discovered the unauthorised access,
contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement. 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.”