Răzvan Manole Cernăianu (born 7 February 1992), nicknamed "TinKode", is a Romanian

computer security Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and computer network, n ...

consultant and

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

, 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 In computing, SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution (e.g. to dump the database contents to the attacker). SQL injec ...

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 The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

's website was temporarily unavailable after TinKode claimed to have hacked it. He has also breached the security of servers at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, posting

screenshots A screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is an analog or digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by a (film) camera shooting the screen or the operating system or software running o ...

from an

FTP server An FTP server is computer software consisting of one or more programs that can execute commands given by remote client(s) such as receiving, sending, deleting files, creating or removing directories, etc. The software may run as a software com ...

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 ...

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

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

Other info

He also claims to have found vulnerabilities in organizations including

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

MySQL MySQL () is an Open-source software, open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A rel ...

, Kaspersky Portugal, the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

, 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

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 Hackers Living people Romanian computer scientists