Is this Australian kid the next Bill Gates?

NEW DELHI: An Australian teenager has apparently hacked into Apple's computer systems, although the tech giant said that no customer data was compromised. The kid accessed the system multiple times over a year as he was a "fan of Apple".

A 16-year-old private school student in Melbourne, who “dreamed of” working for Apple, has got the attention of the folks at Cupertino, California... by hacking into Apple’s mainframe computers and downloading 90 GB of secure files.

The teenage vice came into light during a court hearing he is facing. The boy used tunnels and VPNs to hack into system anonymously and downloaded files, which includes customers’ information, to a folder titled “hacky hack hack”... until a raid at his home revealed the files.

Apple identified the breach and notified FBI, who informed the local police. The company said in a statement that its teams "discovered the unauthorised access, contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement".

The Aussie teen has pleaded guilty and the case is due to return to court for his sentencing next month.

A privacy expert has argued for leniency in the case, saying “for tech teens, it [hacking] can be a part of growing up”. And he could be right, as the world knows another teenage private-schooled hacker who grew up to be a tech titan: Bill Gates. The Microsoft co-founder, when 15, was caught hacking a major corporation’s computer and was forced to give up computing for a year.

Don’t close the gates on prodigies!