Australian authorities decided to spare the charges against the teenager who illegally accessed the Apple networks and downloaded a considerable amount of data from the company, thereby preventing them of going to prison; in addition, website security experts have recommended them to use their hacking skills in an ethical way in the future.
The young hacking expert, whose name will not
be disclosed by the police, pleaded guilty of the incident, which occurred in
2015, when he was only 13 years old. The hacker,
now 17 years old, was sentenced by the juvenile Court of Adelaide, Australia,
for multiple charges of malicious hacking.
According to website security experts, the
hacker, in complicity with another person, repeatedly accessed Apple systems
and downloaded a total of 90 GB of confidential company data; the extracted
information was found on the hacker’s laptop.
“The teenager employed his advanced
hacking skills to create fake access credentials and enter Apple’s systems by
impersonating an employee”, the prosecution said during the last hearing.
On the other hand, the youth’s defense claims that their client was not “aware
enough” of the seriousness of these actions, noting that this was an
attempt to impress Apple and get a job.
According to website security experts a similar
case was presented some time ago in European territory; an individual proved to
be skillful enough to enter a company’s systems, which ended up offering him a
job.
The defense asked the court for the client to
be spared, as the teenager intends to enter the university to specialize in
criminology and computer security, so a prison sentence could be disastrous in
the youth’s life plan.
The court decided not to send the teenager to prison;
instead, they imposed a $500 USD bail and a period of nine months under the
supervision of the court to verify their good behavior.
As for Apple, specialists from the
International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) mention that, when the
incident was detected, the company’s security teams carried out an early
containment protocol and notified the authorities. The company claims that the
personal data of its users were not compromised by the young hacker.
