CANBERRA – *Apple Inc said on Friday no customer data was compromised afterAustralian media reported a teenager had pleaded guilty to hacking into itsmain computer network, downloading internal files and accessing customeraccounts.*
The boy, 16, from the southern city of Melbourne, broke into the US techgiant’s mainframe from his suburban home many times over a year, The Agenewspaperlinkreported, citing statements by the teenager’s lawyer in court.
The teen downloaded 90 gigabytes of secure files and accessed customeraccounts without exposing his identity, the paper said.
Apple contacted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation when it became awareof the intrusion, The Age said, quoting statements made in court. The FBIthen referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
The report said an AFP raid on the boy’s family home produced two laptops,a mobile phone and a hard drive that matched the intrusion reported byApple.
The sensitive documents were saved in a folder called “hacky hack hack”,the report said.
It said the boy had boasted about his activities on the mobile messagingservice WhatsApp.
An Apple spokesperson said the company’s information security personnel“discovered the unauthorized access, contained it, and reported theincident to law enforcement” without commenting further on the specifics ofthe case.
“We … want to assure our customers that at no point during this incidentwas their personal data compromised,” the spokesperson said.
The AFP declined to comment because the matter was before the court. Acourt spokesperson also declined to comment other than to say the teenagerwould be sentenced on Sept 20.
The boy’s name could not be made public because he was a juvenile offender.