Australian Teen Pleads Guilty To Hacking Apple's Computer Network
CUPERTINO (CBS SF) – An Australian teen has reportedly pleaded guilty to hacking into the secure computer systems of Cupertino-based Apple.
According to The Age newspaper, the 16-year-old boy is from a suburb of Melbourne and was a big fan of the tech giant, his attorney said.
The teen, whose identity is being withheld, allegedly downloaded 90 gigabytes of secure files, along with accessing customer accounts over multiple occasions. When Apple noticed the intrusion, the company contacted the FBI, which in turn contacted Australian authorities.
During a raid at the teen's home last year, Apple laptops, along with a phone and hard drive were seized, prosecutors said. The raid also uncovered on the teen's computer hacking files and instructions located in a folder labeled "hacky hack hack."
The teen reportedly bragged about his activities to others on WhatsApp and had become well known among the international hacking community.
In a statement to Reuters, Apple said no customer data was compromised in the hacking. "We ... want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised," the Apple spokesperson said.
The teen is expected to be sentenced on September 20th.