An Australian high school student has been arrested for repeatedly hacking into Apple’s servers and downloading 90GB of “secure files.” The young male is also said to have accessed customer accounts.
The Age reports that the hacks began when the boy – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was 16 years old and continued for some time. His access is said to include ‘authorised keys [which] grant log-in access to users.’
Apple finally detected the unauthorized access and reported it to the FBI, which launched an investigation. When the source of the intrusions was traced to Australia, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) joined what became an international investigation.
The Melbourne teen used VPNs and other anonymity tools in an attempt to avoid being traced. However, Apple’s systems logged the serial numbers of the MacBooks the teen used to gain entry.
The two laptops were seized, and the serial numbers of the devices matched those of the MacBooks used to access the internal Apple systems. Authorities also seized a mobile phone and a hard drive.
Authorities say the downloaded material was all saved into a folder labeled “hacky hack hack.”
The teen – who carried out the attacks “because he was such a fan of the company” and hoped to work there – has plead guilty and will be sentenced in September.
