The site of the European Space Agency (ESA) was hacked last Sunday by a well known Romanian hacker who calls himself “TinKode”. He claims that he wanted to mark the anniversary of Apollo’s return on earth on April 17, 1970, after its failure to reach the moon.

The Romanian entered the servers hosting the web site www.esa.int and opened sensitive documents, including projects related to satellite activity. He revealed the attack on his website where he posted, among other things, hundreds of e-mails, database users and passwords associated with European research institutes and companies, including CERN and BAE Systems.

In the past, “TinKode” also hacked the servers of the British Royal Navy, the U.S. military and even NASA. He is known as a grey hat hacker, which means he does not hack for personal gain or with mallicious intentions, but rather to disclose vulnerabilities.

The European Space Agency later confirmed the attack, but added that the main site was not affected, nor its internal network. However, a few FTP servers used by researchers in partner organizations to exchange data have been compromised.

“TinKode” is known for his attacks that expose vulnerabilities of well-known sites. Some of the sites that have been targeted by the Romanian in the past were YouTube, Google, Reuters.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com