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bne Tech
July 19, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
Hackers target Bulgaria’s revenue agency, accessing millions
of financial records
Denitsa Koseva in Sofia
Hackers have attacked the data of Bulgaria’s National Revenue Agency (NAP), getting access to the personal and financial data of millions of Bulgarians and leaking it to several Bulgarian media from a Russian email address.
According to NAP, the released data is authentic and represents 3% of its data, including millions of records sorted in 57 folders in the biggest ever leak of data in Bulgaria. Most likely, the attack was carried out via the system for VAT refunds.
The hackers accessed the system of Bulgaria’s tax agency, revealing tax declarations, personal identification numbers, names, addresses, income and other information kept by NAP. Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said, as
quoted by Capital news outlet, that the revealed data was not enough to allow anyone to make a full property or financial analysis of any person.
According to Interior Minister Mladen Marinov this is the first successful hacker attack. It was carried out a month ago and the Bulgarian authorities are linking it to other information they have gathered, Marinov said but declined to elaborate.
He also suggested the attack was most likely related to Bulgaria’s decision to buy F-16 fighter jets from the US. However, Goranov assessed such connection as not very likely, news outlet Dnevnik reported.
Read the full story here
Mail.ru teams up with Modern Pick for e-sports development
Russian internet major Mail.ru has agreed to transfer a 51% stake in its cybersports subsidiary Esforce to Moder Pick, a company producing racing video games, Vedomosti daily reported
on July 16 citing the representatives of Mail.ru.
Previously Mai.ru was said to be preparing to sell Esforce. Now, reportedly, in a non-cash deal Mail. ru will get a share in Modern Pick itself, raising its stake from 3% to 19%. The whole e-sports business of Mail.ru is valued at $110mn; the value of Esforce that will be transferred is $56mn. The joint company of Modern Pick and Esforce is valued at $350mn.
Esforce is one of the largest cybersports holdings in the world, which was acquired by Mail.ru
in 2018 for $100mn. The holding includes a cybersports team Virtus.pro and over 11 web platforms with an audience of 114mn people.
The cybersports market has grown by 75% since 2016 to $865mn and could tip over $1bn in 2019, Vedomosti writes citing the estimates of Newzoo. PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts that the market could reach $1.58bn by 2022.