Bulgaria is the first country in Europe to offer insurance against hacking attacks. Both citizens and institutions and businesses will be able to benefit from the service. The IT sector has been pushing for more effective work between institutions and the private sector to prevent hacking attacks. One good example is Israel, where good public-private partnerships work. Yoana Milanova met with a leading cybersecurity expert in Israel, who described how in his country they manage to deal with cases such as the Bulgarian Revenue Agency.

BNT: How do you evaluate the unprecedented leakage of personal data in a hacking attack against the NRA?

Oren Elimelech - International cybersecurity expert from Israel: I know very little about the attack, I have not explored it in detail. But from what I know, this attack happened a few weeks ago, data was stolen and there was a leak.

BNT: Did you have a similar case in Israel and how did you handle it?

Oren Elimelech - International cybersecurity expert from Israel: There are many cases in Israel that are similar to this one. For example, just two days ago, such an attack occurred during the elections. Someone stole data from one of the parties and disseminated it publicly. What we do is help such a party or organization. We are trying to understand how the leak happened, collect this data and remove it from the Internet, which means we are investigating computers, the Internet, mobile devices, phone calls, laptops. We are looking for information on how the leak happened and where the data went. We are trying to find what is called "belonging", which is very difficult to do - to find the attack and how it is related to its source. Less than a month ago, one of Israel's main institutions was attacked, with data leaks of nearly 2.9 million citizens. We helped the organization with the investigation, gathered information and everything went back to normal.

BNT: How can the state and the private sector interact in cybersecurity?

Oren Elimelech - International cybersecurity expert from Israel: In cybersecurity, one of the most important steps is transparency. Transparency between organizations, between government institutions and between people - between government and the private sector. If they share the data, they will be able to detect the attack much earlier. This is very important and this is something that national institutions do in Israel. This is something that national institutions need to do very actively in Bulgaria.

BNT: Is there hacking insurance in the world?

Oren Elimelech - International cybersecurity expert from Israel: There is new insurance against hacking attacks. For example, what we do here in Bulgaria, we do the same in Israel. In Bulgaria, this is to help the organization, to help reduce losses, to get back to normal, to protect them against losses from third parties, to send them answers, to meet with someone and to solve the problem.