It turns out that Kristian Boykov, a 20-year-old Bulgarian cybersecurity worker, who was arrested in Bulgaria's capital Sofia last week in connection to the breach was a "white hat hacker" — a hacker that breaks into computer networks to expose vulnerabilities and push for the weaknesses to be fixed.
He has made news in Bulgaria before. In 2017, he hacked the Bulgarian education ministry's website to expose its vulnerabilities. In a television interview, he described the work as "fulfilling my civic duty".
Sofia prosecutors claim they tracked one of the stolen files from the latest data breach to a username used by Boykov. Boykov and his lawyer reject the allegations against him and say he was not involved.
Boykov was initially charged with a computer crime against critical infrastructure, with a maximum sentence of eight years in jail. Those charges were dropped and he was given a lesser charge of crime against information systems, which has a maximum jail sentence of three years.
The initial hack is believed to have happened in June. The breach remained undetected until an email from a Russian email address was sent to Bulgarian news outlets last week claiming responsibility for the attack. In the email, the sender claimed to be a Russian hacker, gave downloadable links to the stolen information and mocked Bulgaria's cybersecurity efforts.
Police are still in the early stages of the investigation. Some Bulgarian officials have suggested that Russia may have been behind the attack as retaliation for the country's purchase of American-made fighter jets.
Experts who examined the stolen data in Bulgaria said the hack wasn't complicated, and that lack of preventative action from the government was to blame. Out-of-date computer systems are especially vulnerable to a breach.
Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said in a government meeting that Boykov was a "wizard" hacker and that the country should hire similar people to work for the state. We assume that the moment the Bulgarian government starts paying its software geniuses and providing cash to upgrade systems the attacks will be less of a problem.
