A 16 years old high school student from Melbourne, Australia, managed to break into Apple servers and downloaded some 90GB of secure files, including extremely secure authorized keys used to grant login access to users, as well as access multiple user accounts.
Student told the authorities that he hacked Apple because he was a huge fan of Apple and he always wanted to work with them.
The embarrassing part he hacked the company’s servers not once, but multiple times over the course of more than a year, and Apple’s system administrators failed to stop their users’ data from being stolen.
When Apple finally noticed the intrusion, the company contacted the FBI, which took the help of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) after detecting his presence on their servers and blocking him.
The AFP caught the teenager last year after a raid on his residence and seized two Apple laptops, a mobile phone, and a hard drive.
After analyzing the seized equipment, authorities found the stolen data in a folder called “hacky hack hack.” Besides this, authorities also discovered a series of hacking tools and files that allowed the 16-year-old boy to break into Apple’s mainframe repeatedly.
According to the authorities, the teenager also used Whatsapp to share his offending with others. At Apple’s request, authorities did not disclose details regarding the methods the teenager used to hack into its secure servers, though investigators said his ways “worked flawlessly” until the company noticed.
The FBI and the AFP kept everything secret until now, as the teen’s defense lawyer said the boy had become so well known in the international hacking community that even mentioning the case in detail could expose him to risk.
The teen has pleaded guilty to a Children’s Court, but the magistrate has postponed his sentencing till 20th September 2018.
