GhostShell, On the Record – The Extended Interview

“When it’s the middle of the night and you realise you’ve just been attacking and mapping entire cyber continents the only thought left in your head is “Who even cares anymore?”

— Razvan Eugen Gheorghe, formerly known as “GhostShell”

Over the past two weeks, DataBreaches.net and CyberWarNews.info had the opportunity to explore a number of topics with the hacker formerly known as “GhostShell,” who has now doxed himself as Razvan Eugen Gheorghe, a 24-year old resident of Bucharest.

Our email exchanges gave us some insights into Gheorghe’s approach to hacking, the importance of psychological factors in hacking, and why he was taking the extraordinary step of doxing himself. The interviews represent his recollections and perspective. No attempt was made to verify or contact others to get what might be alternative versions.

Because the interview covered so much ground, we are not including everything, but are organizing his answers to our questions in a series of posts. The words and the typing are his. In some cases, when a topic was discussed on more than one occasion, we have occasionally combined the relevant material into a single post.

Although we have some skepticism about this job strategy, we  hope that by doxing himself and telling his story, Gheorghe moves closer to accomplishing his goal of working in the cybersecurity industry, and we thank him for sharing his thoughts and insights with us.

Here are the topics, each in a separate post

• #OpRomania
• Anonymous
• MalSec
• “Team” GhostShell?
• More on Snitches, the Feds, and the Scene
• Why did he really disappear in 2013?
• On criticisms of “simple” hacks
• Psychological Factors
• Difficulty Finding Work and Risk of Arrest
• If You Knew Then What You Know Now….