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Australian teen who hacked into Apple and stole 90 GB of files avoids jail

An Australian teenager who hacked into Apple’s network on multiple occasions over several months and stole sensitive files has been told that he will not be imprisoned.

As Bloomberg reports, the unnamed hacker – who was 16 years old when the security breaches began – exploited a VPN designed for the use of authorized parties to access Apple’s internal systems. With assistance from an accomplice, “he later sent a computer script to the system which created a secure shell tunnel – a method of accessing systems and bypassing firewalls – enabling them to remove data more quickly.”

In all, 90 GB of sensitive data is thought to have been exfiltrated, including internal security policies and authorized login keys.

Unfortunately for the unnamed youth, his activities were spotted by the tech giant. Apple informed the FBI, which in turn informed Australian law enforcement. This led to a police raid at his home last year.

Prosecutors described what investigators found on the youth’s seized computer hardware:

Two Apple laptops were seized and the serial numbers matched the serial numbers of the devices which accessed the internal systems. A mobile phone and hard drive were also seized and the IP address … matched the intrusions into the organisation. The purpose was to connect remotely to the company’s internal systems.

Furthermore, exploration of the laptop’s contents uncovered a folder named “hacky hack hack” containing the stolen files.

If that sounds like something of a childish error, consider that the Melbourne private schoolboy is also said to have bragged about his hack with friends via WhatsApp.

The teenager, who is now 19, was described to be a “fan” of Apple who “dreamed” of working for the company one day and found accessing its internal networks “addictive.”

Apple was at pains to point (Read more...)