Romania: Haven for hackers turned cyber sleuths

Vlad Odobescu | Special for USA TODAY

Corrections & Clarifications: This version of the article expands on the type of information technology people Bitdefender​ hired to combat hackers.

BUCHAREST, Romania — Razvan Cernaianu once surfed the Internet anonymously and easily broke into the computer systems for NASA, the Pentagon and Oracle.

Then he became part of a legion of hackers that turned Romania into a center of international cyber fraud investigators.

Now, the 25-year-old is co-founder of Cyber Smart Defense, a security firm with 12 employees, annual revenues of $1.45 million and offices in Belgium, Romania, the United Arab Emirates and Santa Barbara, Calif.

He's also one of a growing legion of former criminal hackers who have helped Romania — the second-poorest country in the European Union — punch above its weight in the tech industry.

"As knowledge prevails in this area, companies will tend to hire people who have a past in (criminal) hacking," said Andrei Avadanei, chief executive of Bit Sentinel, an information security company based in Bucharest. “There are companies that appreciate a past in (that) area.”

Romania's information and communication technology industry employs 120,000 engineers and generates around 6% of the country's gross domestic product, the fourth highest in the EU, according to the European Commission. Exports of tech services generated almost $3 billion last year, doubling over the past three years. The industry is set to generate $4.5 billion in two years, according to the Romanian Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry.

Criminal hackers transitioning to legitimate work is a long-awaited success story after the fall of communism in Romania in December 1989. In the 1990s, college graduates in advanced science had few opportunities as Eastern Europe transitioned to democracy and capitalism. Some become hackers to make a living. Now, as Romania has stabilized a decade after it joined the EU, these people have other options.

“The country created an ecosystem that continuously produced technical and scientific talents,” said Florin Talpeș, chief executive of Bitdefender, a Romanian Internet security software company that has hired ex-hackers to provide services for 500 million devices around the world.

"There are good hackers, self-employed or employees of various companies, who use their intelligence to find vulnerabilities in computer systems, which then companies can solve for not being used for evil purposes. On the other hand, there are cybercriminals or those hackers who are breaking into information systems illegally. Bitdefender has never hired hackers in this second category," Talpeș said.

In addition to joining the corporate world, former hackers now work in the public sector.

"All intelligence services do it,” said Anton Rog, director of Cyberint, part of the Romanian Intelligence Service. “The hackers can be directed for (good) purposes, not only for (criminal) ones. We find hackers who did bad things and served out their punishment — and some of them may respond and agree to help their country."

In 2013, after the conflict in Ukraine began, Romania, a NATO member, led a multinational cyber defense campaign to defend its eastern neighbor from Russian attacks on Ukrainian servers.

Although Romania's IT industry has exploded with help from former hackers, the country still produces Internet scammers.

“There are two categories: the genius guys who understand how to break a system and who understand vulnerabilities and who are doing this as a hobby,” said Daniel Dines, chief executive of the Romanian software company UiPath. “The other category is made of small thieves who are stealing credit cards, opening a fake account on eBay and pretending to sell some goods to gullible people. Those are just thefts.”

In December, three Romanians operating a cyber fraud scheme were extradited to the United States and indicted for infecting 60,000 computers, sending 11 million malicious emails and stealing at least $4 million.

Still, many like Cernaianu now prefer legitimate hacking — and earning a large paycheck. His big break came after his arrest for hacking those A-list names. He was fined $120,000 and served three months in a Romanian jail in 2012 before being given a two-year suspended sentence.

“The experience helped me grow up,” Cernaianu said about his arrest. "I paid a heavy price, but it was worth it. Now I’m doing what I like the most without worry.”