https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611806/how-social-media-took-us-from-tahrir-square-to-donald-trump/After a massive hack in Bulgaria, the prime minister called the attacker a “wizard,” but cybersecurity experts said the security was simply inadequate.
The hack: A 20-year-old man has been charged with an unprecedented hack of the country’s tax authority in June, ending with the theft of sensitive personal records from nearly every adult in Bulgaria. The data leak includes names, addresses, income and earnings information, and personal identification numbers, totaling 21 gigabytes and extending back over a decade. The hacker claimed to have stolen data from over 5 million Bulgarians. The country’s entire population is only around 7 million.
Nope, not a wizard: Security professionals say the SQL injection attack would have been easy to detect and exploit. The attacker also left a mountain of digital traces that led to his arrest.