A 16-year-old boy from Melbourne, Australia, hacked into the main computer network of Cupertino-based Apple Inc and downloaded internal files and customer accounts. The buy broke into the mainframe-based in the United States from his suburban home many times over a year. He allegedly downloads 90gigs of secure files from the Apple servers including sensitive customer account details without exposing his identity.
The matter was brought in light when Apple discovered an intrusion and contacted the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who in turn traced the location of the intruder in Melbourne, Australia and then, contacted the Australian Federal Police in what became an international investigation string.
Further, the Australian Federal Police raided the boy’s home where they found two Apple laptops, a mobile phone, and a hard drive containing the data that Apple described earlier. Interestingly, the boy who is well-known in the hacking community saved the folder as ‘hacky hack hack’. The location of the boy was traced after the serial numbers of the two MacBooks in use were recorded by Apple and then, the Australian police verified the serial number to confirm the culprit.
The teenage boy used various tools such as VPNs so that his actual location isn’t determined. He used authorized keys that allow users to log-in to any network without actually entering the credentials. The boy has pleaded guilty and he will be sentenced on September 20. The name is being kept under wrap as the boy is just 16 and a juvenile. According to his lawyer, the boy was a big fan of Apple and just wanted to impress the executives so that he could work there. Apple claimed that all the lost data has been recovered and no sensitive information has been leaked.
