Head of National Investigation Service: Most cyber attacks on Bulgaria come from Russia

Most cyber attacks on our country have come from Russia, said the Deputy Prosecutor General and Director of the National Investigation Service, Borislav Sarafov, who took part in a conference between Bulgaria and the Crown Prosecution Service of Great Britain on the topic of "Cyber Security”, held on November 28. Sarafov was adamant that cybercrimes are the crimes of the new times and are those for which there are no borders.

"A person can be in one country but commit crimes in another. That is why good cooperation between the law enforcement agencies is of utmost importance to be able to detect and prove these crimes and ultimately bring the perpetrators to justice. Unfortunately, cybercrime is on the rise. Life is becoming increasingly digitalised. There are more and more cloud service providers, and you know that more and more information is going into the cloud and probably almost all the crimes that are being committed in real life as well. Keep in mind that there are more clues left in the virtual world than in the real world as long as one can find them and look for them. With the necessary technical capabilities and with the necessary software, which we have thanks to our colleagues from the United States and the United Kingdom, they are easy for us to prove. No one should think that they are hidden behind a computer and anonymous. On the contrary, these crimes are even easier to prove, as long as we have the necessary knowledge and equipment, both in terms of software and hardware. We currently have such thanks to our Euro-Atlantic partners from the UK and the US," Sarafov said.

"Most cyber attacks on Bulgaria come from Russia, as is no secret to you. We have some suspicions that there are special units structured in Russia for such attacks, whether they are at the state level, whether a group of hackers have structured themselves, we are yet to find out. We have our suspicions, but mainly the cyber attacks and crimes are committed from the territory of Russia and that is why communication with the Russian authorities is difficult, because obviously it is difficult to expect responsiveness and communication from there," Borislav Sarafov further said.