A 26-year old Romanian who allegedly hacked the NASA servers in 2010 has been detained by the Romanian authorities for 24 hours. Romanian hacker Butyka Robert, based in Cluj, has caused a USD 500,000 damage to NASA by disrupting the functioning of its servers, the prosecutors have said.

Several cyber-crime networks originating from Romania have been recently dismantled with US help. Earlier this year, a Romanian hacker nicknamed TinKode hacked the website of the European Space Agency (ESA). In the past, “TinKode” claimed to have hacked the servers of the British Royal Navy, the U.S. military and even NASA. He is known as a gray hat hacker, which means he does not hack for personal gain or with malicious intentions, but rather to disclose vulnerabilities. It is yet uncertain whether the detained Butyka Robert is in fact TinKode.

editor@romania-insider.com