Teenager managed to obtain employee-level access to Apple's servers, and in an extended period of time, was able to download around a terabyte of "secured files".
Apple realized about the hack after it detected the access. The teen was using VPNs as well as other tools to hide his IP addresses and locations. However, Apple' systems logged the serial number of the MacBooks the teen used to carry out the attacks.
These serial numbers were linked to purchase records, and this was how Apple managed to identify the hacker.
Apple then reported the case to the FBI, which carried out a joint investigation with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to catch the culprit.
As expected, the teen pleaded guilty.
The teen first hacked Apple when he was still 13. The boy who was just 17 when he was apprehended, said that he and another teenager from Melbourne hacked into the technology giant's mainframe in December 2015 and then again in early 2017 and downloaded internal documents and data.
They hacked Apple because they heard that Apple hired a European who'd done the same thing, and assumed that a job was waiting for them the moment they were discovered.
A magistrate told a Children’s Court that the hacking was "serious, sustained, and sophisticated" [and the hackers] had "modified and copied a large volume of data that was sensitive both from a privacy and commercial point of view," and showed a high degree of skill and persistence.
The boy's lawyer Mark Twiggs told the court that his client was not aware of the seriousness of his actions at the time, and thought the company might offer him a job.
"This offending started when my client was 13 years of age, a very young age," he said. "He had no idea about the seriousness of the offence and hoped that when it was discovered that he might gain employment at this company."
Twiggs called for his client to be spared a conviction because he planned to study cybersecurity and criminology at university and a criminal record could impact his employment opportunities in the future.
"My client is remorseful," he said.
Because the court heard Apple did not incur any financial or intellectual loss from the hack, and no personal data was exposed, the case believed testimony that the teen had been using his technological powers for good since then.
According to Magistrate David White who placed the boy on a $500 AUD (about $346) good behavior bond for nine months:
"The manner in which the world functions is one that is heavily reliant on computer technology and those who unlawfully interfere with those systems can do enormous amounts of damage."
The courts viewed the case with having three mitigating factors:
The offender was a minor, meant no harm, and hadn’t appreciated the seriousness of his crimes. He had naively imagined that by proving his computer skills to Apple, the company might offer him jobs at the Cupertino headquarter.
For those reasons, the teen avoided prison sentences. And as for his accomplice, he was also spared a conviction when dealt with through the Children's Court of Victoria.
Apple didn’t have anything new to say about the cases, but referred us to its original statement.
"We regard the data security of our users as one of our greatest responsibilities and want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised."
