Bulgaria Gears Up for the Euro: Essential Cash Register and Vending Machine Updates (KEY DATES)
With Bulgaria preparing to adopt the euro as its official currency, changes in how retail transactions are processed are on the horizon
An unprecedented hack attack to which the Central Election Commission of Bulgaria and several ministries were exposed on local elections day last week will not affect voting results, officials say.
On Sunday, as Bulgarians were casting ballots in local and municipal elections and in a national referendum on e-voting, the so-called "distributed denial-of-service" (DDoS) attack hit the commission's website which provided updates on voter turnout.
The incident began just hours into the election, with over 65 000 000 simultaneous sessions targeting the website. That would be equal to an attempt by 65 000 000 users to access the website at the same time, while Bulgaria's population numbers just 7.2 million.
Of the 530 000 000 visits to the commission's website that followed over the next 10 hours, a quarter were made by users with Vietnam, Turkey, and US-based IP addresses.
In elections held so far, normal Internet traffic to the website is roughly 1.8 million in an entire month.
This translated into "15 000 hacks [sic!] per second", despite the firewall which is "one of the best in the world," Mihail Konstantinov, the head of state-owned Information Services (the state-owned company which counts the vote), told private national NOVA TV station.
Konstantinov made clear there was no way for the attacks to affect either election or referendum results, given that "Internet is not used for processing results."
He also said a "big group of hackers" might have been behind the attack (with his company having some suggestions) and demanded the perpetrators be brought to court.
Opponents to the proposal put forward in the referendum, which asks citizens whether online voting should be included as a legitimate method in elections, pointed to the hack attack as an example of how easily Internet security could be breached.
Brussels has unofficially warned Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova that the country’s euro adoption process could be suspended, according to BGNES, citing Nova TV.
"Everyone wants positions – in regulatory bodies and ministries," he emphasized.
Bulgaria’s toll system now has the technical capability to track average vehicle speeds, as announced by the National Toll Management following a meeting with Regional Development Minister Violeta Koritarova.
The income required to cover living expenses for a working individual and a three-member family with a child under 14 has remained almost unchanged compared to June, according to an analysis by the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CI
The Council of Ministers has adopted a resolution to set the minimum wage at 1,077 leva, reflecting a 15.
Every 20 minutes, fire alerts are received from across Bulgaria.
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