An Australian teenager hacked into Apple's secure network and stole 90 GB of data

Apple recently became the first company in the history of the world to hit a market cap of USD $1 trillion. You’d expect a company that big to have some state-of-the-art security measure to safeguard its data, especially if it’s the largest tech company in the world. Still, a teenager from Melbourne, Australia managed to remotely hack into Apple’s secure servers for over a year and steal 90 GB of confidential files, including customer accounts.

The teen, who must remain anonymous for legal reasons, was able to access Apple’s servers via various methods that hid his identity. He was able to access authorized keys that allowed him to log in. Over the course of a year, the teen remotely accessed the servers and downloaded over 90 GB of secure files, some of which contained customer account information.

The teen went undetected for a long period of time until Apple finally noticed an intrusion and blocked his IP address. Apple then contacted the FBI, who turned the case over to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). The AFP issued a search warrant for the teen’s home and seized two Apple laptops, as well as the teen’s phone and hard drive. At least one of the computers contained a folder labelled “hacky hack hack” that was loaded with hacking software and instructions.

So why did the teen hack Apple? Apparently, it wasn’t to get confidential information or money. The teen’s defense attorney claims that the hacker accessed Apple’s servers because he loved the Cupertino company and had always dreamed of working for them. I doubt he’ll be getting a job offer any time soon.

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