An Australian hacker who confessed to having hacked into Apple systems and stealing confidential information from company employees (and then sharing it on Twitter) was tried recently and, luckily for him, avoided a prison sentence. The information is Beta District News.
According to the report, the hacker Abe Crannaford, now 24, extracted restricted information from Apple between mid-2017 and early 2018; then published that data on Twitter. According to the indictment, he also reportedly provided links to the company’s firmwares on GitHub.
For these actions, Crannaford could have been sentenced to two years in prison, in addition to paying a fine of more than $ 10,000; instead, prosecutor Doug Dick ordered the young man to pay $ 5,000 and eased the prison sentence, giving him 18 months probation.
The hacker’s defense argued that Apple encourages people to look for flaws in their systems and products by making available a bug bounty program (Apple Security Bounty); however, the magistrate did not fully accept the argument. For the prosecutor, Crannaford’s violations occurred on several occasions and were shared with others, so that «the concept of reward is contrary to your actions».
Crannaford is not the first or second (Australian) young man to go to the jury for hacking into Apple systems; in reality, he is the third defendant to be tried for this type of crime, for the third consecutive year – can Apple already order music on “Fantástico”?
via Cult of Mac
