Breach, Threat Management, Data Security, Vulnerability Management

Australian Apple hacker avoids jail, gets eight months probation

A Melbourne teenager who pleaded guilty in Australia's Children's Court to repeatedly hacking into Apple's corporate systems because he admired the company was reportedly sentenced to eight months of probation and will avoid jail time.

"Your offending is serious, sustained and sophisticated," said the magistrate presiding over the case, according to The Age. "You knew what you were doing was wrong."

Nevertheless, the 19-year-old man, who was a 16-year-old private schoolboy when he first began intruding into Apple's systems, received a lenient sentence, and is now slated to study criminology and cybersecurity in college.

The man, who is not identified because he was a juvenile at the time of his act, admitted in court last month that he hacked Apple multiple times between 2015 and 2017, in the process downloading 90 GB of secure files, accessing authorized keys and viewing customer accounts.

Tipped off by the FBI, the Australian Federal Police raided the teen's home last year and found incriminating evidence saved in a folder named "hacky hack hack."

Bradley Barth

As director of multimedia content strategy at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for online conferences, webcasts, podcasts video/multimedia projects — often serving as moderator or host. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.

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