Răzvan Manole Cernăianu (born 7 February 1992), nicknamed "TinKode", is a Romanian computer security consultant and hacker, known for gaining unauthorized access to computer systems of many different organizations, and posting proof of his exploits online. He commonly hacks high-profile websites that have SQL injection vulnerabilities, although unknown methods were used in his most recent attacks. Other aliases included sysgh0st.

Personal life

TinKode is Romanian and claims to have been born in 1992 in the southern part of the country.Weaver, Matthew (8 November 2010)
"Hacker attacks Royal Navy website"
"guardian.co.uk". He states that his hacking skills are the result of extreme curiosity and ambition. The targets are well known websitesLeyden, John (18 May 2011)
"Serial hacker TinKode rifles through NASA satellite files"
"theregister.co.uk". and powerful brands with widespread influence, either for the online community or a particular marketplace. His attacks often involve the numeral seven. Tinkode was a fan of social networks, owning both a Twitter account, a Facebook account, as well as many blogs.

Alleged hacking

The Royal Navy's website was temporarily unavailable after TinKode claimed to have hacked it. He has also breached the security of servers at NASA, posting

screenshots screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display. Additionally, s ...

from an FTP server within NASA's Earth Observation System at

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...

. He claims to have gained access to computers belonging to the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

Other info

He also claims to have found vulnerabilities in organizations including

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

, MySQL, Kaspersky Portugal, the US Army, YouTube, Google, Other websites. TinKode has never been publicly criticized by the security experts, mainly because he didn't disclose full information regarding breached websites. He actually informed the webmasters before posting his results online, giving them time to fix the vulnerability. TinKode also received a Google Security Reward.

Arrest

On Tuesday, 31 January 2012, TinKode was placed under arrest by the Romanian authority DIICOT (Anti organised crime and terrorism institution), under the charge that he temporarily blocked the information systems of the US Army, Pentagon and NASA in association with Casi. TinKode was officially released on 27 April 2012.

Petition and support

Following his arrest, a petition was generated to raise support for Tinkode on Wednesday, 8 February 2012. The petition was aimed at DIICOT and the FBI to give Tinkode a reasonable and fair sentence claiming that the hacker wasn't malicious and was hacking out of curiosity. Further he was released after 3 months.

References

{{reflist 1992 births People associated with computer security Living people Romanian computer scientists