Arrest After Bulgaria Suffers Damaging Cyber Attack

The Bulgarian government has apologised after nearly all seven million adults in the country have reportedly had their personal data compromised in a cyber attack.

The country’s tax agency (NRA) suffered the attack on its servers, according to Reuters, which one researcher reportedly said may have compromised nearly every adult’s personal records in that country.

The attack apparently took place at the end of June and is said to have compromised 3 percent of the NRA’s databases.

Bulgarian cyber attack

But it seems that the authorities have reacted quickly and a 20-year-old Bulgarian cybersecurity worker has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack.

The man is said to work for a security firm that protects IT systems against breaches.

He was detained on Tuesday afternoon, police cybersecurity chief Yavor Kolev was quoted by Reuters as saying. A laptop and other devices were seized at the suspect’s house and office.

Kolev said investigations were still at an early stage and police were still looking into the possibility that other people were involved.

“We have detained a suspect. His job was to test computer systems and networks for possible vulnerabilities to prevent attacks,” Kolev was quoted as telling bTV television.

Finance minister Vladislav Goranov has already apologised to the country on Tuesday

Ongoing threat

The ongoing threat posed by cyber attacks remains very real.

This week for example the UK’s cyber-security watchdog said it had foiled a fraud scheme involving emails that impersonated a UK airport as part of its activities in 2018.

The scam, which made use of a fake gov.uk address, sent some 200,000 emails to members of the public asking them to pay a fee in order to receive a larger refund.

But the emails, sent in late August, were prevented from reaching their recipients, said the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in an annual report.

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