Writing at the Weekly Standard, Eric Felten pens what he calls The Romanian Ruse, about an imagined Romanian hacker who was alleged to be responsible for some of the mischief done by GRU hackers at the behest of Russian leader Putin. This rings a bell.
I am an occasional reader of the Tom Clancy-originated Jack Ryan series of door-stop-size big sprawling novels now being continued by coauthor Mark Greaney. In one of these a Romanian hacker with evil “social engineering” talent is featured, and eventually brought down by Jack Jr. and his Campus deep-cover colleagues.
No way to prove it but I suspect this was the source of the idea for an imagined “Romanian villain.” Perhaps there’ve been enough such to make them “a thing.” Either that, or the Clancy-inspired series has fanboys in Russian intelligence.
