A teenager from Australia hacked Apple and stole 90 gigs worth of information

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

A Melbourne, Australia teenager spent at least the past year hacking into Apple’s network multiple times. The teenager who has pled guilty to the crime says he did so because he was a “fan” of Apple, according to The Age.

The teenager, who is unnamed because of his age, accessed customer accounts and downloaded 90GB of sensitive files. The hacker was finally stopped after Apple detected access to its servers from an outside source. The FBI, working with the Australian Federal Police, was then able to match the serial numbers from the teen’s computers to the unauthorized access.

In total, officials seized two Apple laptops from the defendant’s home, plus a hard drive and phone. The authorities found evidence of the teen’s hacking in a folder labeled, “hacky hack hack.”

According to the teen’s defense lawyer, his client is well known in the international hacking community and mentioning the case in detail could expose him to risk. He “dreamed of” working at Apple eventually.

Sentencing is scheduled for September. For its part, Apple hasn’t commented on the case.

Instead of putting this kid in jail, I would hope he would be allowed to work at Apple as an unpaid intern through a community service program. That way, his skills as a hacker wouldn’t be wasted.

What do you think? Should the kid be sent to prison for hacking or should his sentence be something a little bit more creative? Let us know your opinion below. 

For more tech and gaming news, make sure to check out:

• Pokémon Go will finally give parents better controls over how their kids play the game
• Google could reveal the first Pixel Watch alongside its Pixel phone lineup this fall
• Facebook’s birthday fundraising tool has now raised over $300 million

Bryan M. Wolfe

Bryan considers himself a well-rounded techie, having written articles for MakeUseOf, KnowTechie, AppAdvice, iDownload Blog. When he's not writing, he's being a single dad and rooting for his alma mater, Penn State, or cheering on the Patriots.