A Bulgarian product was one of the options considered by Russian authorities for cyber attacks, a New York Times article says.

The text tells a story about Aleksandr Vyarya, a programmer who turned down an offer from the government to join a team of hackers.

Vyarya, whose experience was mostly about protecting people from hackers, is reported as saying he was "invited to accompany Vasily Brovko, an executive at the military contracting company Rostec, on a trip to Sofia, Bulgaria."

"But he said it turned out to be a demonstration of a new software suite capable of staging DDoS attacks [distributed denial of service, an attack disabling websites through the generation of fake traffic]."

Reportedly, the Bulgarian firm demonstrating the software briefly crashed the website of Ukraine's Defense Ministry and Russian news website Slon.ru.

Before rejecting the job offer, Vyarya was told the Russians planned to buy the software from the Bulgarians for about USD 1 M.

Rostec is quoted as saying the trip to Bulgaria with Vyarya, which did take place, was aimed at evaluating software for defensive cybersystems.

No specific mention is made of the Bulgarian company that offered the software.

The story follows allegations from the United States that Russia used cyber attacks to interfere in November's presidential election, something Moscow denies.

On Thursday, Washington declared 35 Russian diplomats "persona non grata" in retaliation to the alleged hacking.

The New York Times' article is available here.

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