By: Miftahul Huq
What is “Hackerville”, and how did come up to be a hotspot for criminal hackers?
Hackerville is a nickname for a town in Romania, Ramnicu Valcea. The town became a breeding ground for black hat hackers in the 1990s and it all started after the Romanian revolution and the fall of communists in 1989. Leading the country to endure a prolonged period of economic turmoil. That caused the job market to go down. Therefore, a lot of individuals who were technically trained turned to hack to make more money than they would’ve made by putting in the effort to find a job and make money that way.
What happened over the years?
Over the years there was an increase in hackers and cyber underground industries were created to anonymously hack from, and the town became home to many cybergangs. By 2005, “Romania had become widely known as a haven for online fraud.” The American ambassador in Bucharest, Romania, Mark Gitenstein, stated that in a year $1 billion was stolen in the U.S. by Romanian hacker and 80 percent of those victimized were Americans. Some other countries that were affected by the Romanian hackers were French, British, Germen and Italina citizens. The thing that sets the Romanian hackers is that they work in groups. They recruit young people, and children from a local orphanage to participate in setting up fake website to see fake products to get credit card and other valuable informations. To fight off the criminal, “the FBI trained 600 Romanian law enforcement officers on the ins and outs of cyber-crime” and in 2011 they were able to arest 500 Romanian hacker.
There are still other hacker that are out there in the Romania and the number of skilled hackers are continue to increase. When a white hat hacker was asked how to stop these hacker, he said “The simplest way to stop hackers from attacking a company is to hire them. Then the companies will know the mindset of a hacker and will help your company.” In the end, there is no such thing as absolute security and humans will always be the loophole in security.
Sources:
https://www.wired.com/2011/01/ff-hackerville-romania/
https://www.govtech.com/security/romanian-town-nicknamed-hackerville.html
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/03/27/romania-from-hackerville-to-cybersecurity-powerhouse/
RIT Cyber Security Policy and Law Class Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.