Apple says no customer information involved in hack by Australian teen
Apple on Friday commented on recent revelations that an Australian teen gained unauthorized access to its corporate computer network, saying the hack did not compromise customer data despite reports claiming the boy accessed customer accounts.
Apple's "global command" data center in Mesa, Ariz. | Source: The Republic
On Thursday, The Age reported a 16-year-old Melbourne boy, whose name is not being made public because he is a juvenile, conducted a series of attacks on Apple's computer systems over the course of a year.
In all, the hacker collected some 90 gigabytes of secure files and accessed customer accounts, according to court statements. The teen lodged a guilty plea when in Children's Court on Thursday.
Apple security personnel "discovered the unauthorized access, contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement," a company spokesman told Reuters on Friday.
"We ... want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised," the spokesman said.
According to The Age, Apple notified the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation upon discovering the hack, and the law enforcement body handed the case over to the Australian Federal Police.
A raid of the boy's suburban home last year yielded two Apple laptops, a mobile phone and a hard drive associated with the hack. According to statements heard in court, the serial numbers of the laptops and the mobile phone's IP address matched those of devices that accessed Apple's systems.
While details of the intrusion are at this point unknown, the teen was reportedly able to remotely access Apple's secure network through highly protected "authorized keys" and software installed on at least one laptop. Over the course of a year, the boy gleaned some 90GB of data from Apple's servers, which was subsequently stored in a file named "hacky hack hack."
Media is just now learning about the hack thanks to the teen's court appearance. Apple was said to be "very sensitive about publicity" regarding the incident and successfully kept word of the case out of the public eye.
Apple's "global command" data center in Mesa, Ariz. | Source: The Republic
On Thursday, The Age reported a 16-year-old Melbourne boy, whose name is not being made public because he is a juvenile, conducted a series of attacks on Apple's computer systems over the course of a year.
In all, the hacker collected some 90 gigabytes of secure files and accessed customer accounts, according to court statements. The teen lodged a guilty plea when in Children's Court on Thursday.
Apple security personnel "discovered the unauthorized access, contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement," a company spokesman told Reuters on Friday.
"We ... want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised," the spokesman said.
According to The Age, Apple notified the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation upon discovering the hack, and the law enforcement body handed the case over to the Australian Federal Police.
A raid of the boy's suburban home last year yielded two Apple laptops, a mobile phone and a hard drive associated with the hack. According to statements heard in court, the serial numbers of the laptops and the mobile phone's IP address matched those of devices that accessed Apple's systems.
While details of the intrusion are at this point unknown, the teen was reportedly able to remotely access Apple's secure network through highly protected "authorized keys" and software installed on at least one laptop. Over the course of a year, the boy gleaned some 90GB of data from Apple's servers, which was subsequently stored in a file named "hacky hack hack."
Media is just now learning about the hack thanks to the teen's court appearance. Apple was said to be "very sensitive about publicity" regarding the incident and successfully kept word of the case out of the public eye.
Comments
If the hack had involved customer accounts then the company would’ve been obliged to make the hack public to warn customers.
However, the fact he had access to “authorised keys” seems to indicate that Apple is leaking somewhere. The network is secure, but some procedure somewhere is not.
Sheeesh !!
(Where is DED when you need him? He wouldn't have been so ignorant...)
For what it’s worth I believe Apple because they have most to lose by lying about it.
Even more ignorance from you guys. Do you know what is the most fierce competition between Australia and New Zealand. It happens in the game of rugby. And it most well known in something called the Bledisloe Cup. Now guess what the New Zealand rugby team is called... wait for it... the ALL BLACKS !!! No truly. I am not making this stuff up.
So dear Appleinsider editors you have insulted we Australians twice. Well done!
Anyway to fix this thing I give you our proud Aussie flag:
NO FIX IT. Don't hide your stuff up.
I wouldn't have expected that.
Anyway, long weekend for me starting in an hour or so. Out of sight out of mind and all that.
"90 gigabytes of secure files"
and
"We ... want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised"
Yes the kid got his hands on customer data, but since it was "secure" ie, it was encrypted, the data was not "compromised" so Apple can assure people that their data is not out in the wild.
I'd be sleeping more easily knowing it is encrypted but a little concerned that someone could be trying to crack the files open.
As there have been no calls for users to change passwords it might also be the case that there was nothing sensitive enough in the data to merit any further action beyond locating and prosecuting the kid.
... how would we feel if it was oh say pick a random example some foreign hostile country agency that had gained access ... ?