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.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
