Bulgarian Government hit by series of Cyberattacks, traced to Russian Hackers

On October 15, the Prosecutor-General’s Office stated that Russian hackers were responsible for an extensive cyberattack on the websites of the Bulgarian President and numerous other government departments.

Ivan Geshev, Bulgaria’s Prosecutor-General and quite a controversial figure himself, described the cyberattack as a “serious problem” and called it “an assault on the Bulgarian state.”

According to Geshev, the Justice Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Defence Ministry, and the Constitutional Court were all affected and paralyzed by DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, along with the President’s Office.

He also said that the Russian city of Magnitogorsk was the origin of the assault.

Distributed denial-of-service attacks send an overwhelming amount of requests at once, bringing down the targeted websites. Websites are either made unavailable or function very slowly as a result of the assault.

The Bulgarian Ministry of Digital Affairs said that the assaults had been stopped and that measures had been made to mitigate the damage to government websites.

Geshev said that Bulgaria, as a member of the European Union, protects European principles and that it is reasonable to assume that this assault would have repercussions.

Despite Russia's continuing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bulgaria is giving humanitarian aid and limited lethal aid to the nation. Bulgaria has also taken in over 100 000 Ukrainian refugees, and over 800 000 have temporarily stayed in the country.

The Russian hacker collective KillNet has taken responsibility, according to the news outlet Dnevnik. In a Telegram message, the gang revealed the impending assault. KillNet comprises self-proclaimed "pro-Kremlin patriots," as its members put it.

Attacks like this are meant to get media coverage and then be used to distribute false information.