Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) is unable to provide electronic services because the Agency’s website and servers have come under a cyber attack, the BFSA said in a press release on Monday. The attack was detected on August 6, and the BFSA’s full range of functionalities and services are currently inaccessible.

Work is underway to restart the electronic services. The cyber attack does not affect the operation of Bulgarian border checkpoints, the BFSA specified.

A major Russian-originated ransomware attack occurred on the Bulgarian State Post Office system. Six hours passed between the beginning of their attack and the moment when the servers were turned off and the system's connection to the Internet was cut off. During this time, hackers had access to the entire database and were able to encrypt or even delete archives Hackers moved laterally into all IT and OT systems affecting all 26 services offered.

Besides affecting systems for payment and transfer of money, pensions, etc, the sending and receiving of post, domestic and international was interrupted for weeks. After a time, post could be received but only if the recipient did not owe amounts at time of delivery.