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Teenage hacker: no user data compromised, say Apple

Just yesterday, the news broke that Apple’s corporate network had been hacked by a teenage boy. The Australian 16-year-old managed to access Apple’s servers multiple times over the past year, reportedly downloading around 90GB of secure data.

The boy has been caught by the Australian police after being contacted by the FBI. Turns out he wasn’t so good at hiding his tracks, keeping the stolen data in a folder on his MacBook called “hacky hack hack”. That’s either incredibly naïve, or super ballsy. Maybe both.

Regardless, Apple has since confirmed that no personal user data was compromised as part of the hack. As it was a corporate server that was accessed, it stands to reason that user data wouldn’t be available without further access.

Apple is famously careful with the minimal user data that it stores, though that doesn’t protect customers against phishing attacks like the one that caused the celebrity iCloud leaks a few years back. (Phishing is a kind of social hacking that tricks users into freely giving up their login details.)

It doesn’t necessarily bode well for Apple that a teenager was able to break into their systems, whether it was a phishing attack or a more conventional hack.

The boy – unnamed in stories due to his age – is currently waiting to be sentenced after pleading guilty. He said in a statement that it’s his dream to work for Apple, and we wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up snapped up for the security team to help prevent this kind of thing happening again.