Teenager appears in court accused of Apple 'hacky hack hack'

Internal Apple documents found on child's MacBook in folder named 'hacky hack hack'

Apple's internal networks were cracked by a 16-year-old from Melbourne, Australia who stole 90 gigabytes of data, including customer documents.

The break-in came to light this week when the child, whose identity has been withheld for legal reasons, appeared in the Children's Court in Australia.

According to reports, the boy was able to download internal files and access customer accounts. The boy told police that he was a ‘fan' of the company and wanted to work for Apple when he grew up.

Reports suggest that the child didn't simply crack the security of Apple's website or a web server on the periphery of its network. Instead, according to Sky News, the child broke into the company's central mainframe a number of times and was able to exfiltrate the files before his activities were identified and access shut down.

Apple contacted the FBI, which traced the attack to Australia.

The child's home was raided last year after the IP address from where the attack was made was identified. Two Apple laptops used in the attack were also identified by their Mac addresses - reflecting the variable sophistication of the attack.

The court was told that the teenager had believed that he had executed a ‘flawless' hack, until the knock on the door from the Australian Federal Police.

However, despite the child's claim that he was a fan of Apple and wanted to work for the company when he grows up, his defence lawyer claimed that he had acquired a reputation in the global hacking community, and even boasted about his exploits in a WhatsApp group.