Cyber Shield for the State: 50 Public Institutions with Enhanced Protection under a European Project

“The National Cybersecurity System is a matter of paramount importance and I would like to sincerely congratulate the team that managed to achieve tangible results in such a short time.” With these words, Deputy Minister of e-Government Nikolay Minev opened the information event for the project "Enhancing national capabilities for coordination and response to incidents related to cybersecurity".

In recent years, electronic services and online access to information have grown significantly, which imposes increasingly strict requirements on the administration – both regarding the constant availability of services and the protection of data. According to Deputy Minister Minev, the risks in the field of cybersecurity are at a "critically high level", while awareness of them in the public and private sectors is still lagging behind.

Upgrading cyberdefence for 50 public organisations

“Within the framework of the project, we are delivering and installing key infrastructure components, as well as information and communication systems for cybersecurity for 50 constituents,” explained Velizar Varbanov, Director of the “Network and Information Security” Directorate at the Ministry of e-Government and project manager. “We are building and modernising the cybersecurity environment, connecting public organisations into a unified national system. In this way, we also achieve the main goal – to increase the national capacity for coordination and response to cyber incidents,” Varbanov further emphasised.

He presented the main activities – from the infrastructural provision of the National Cybersecurity System (NCS) to the implementation of new information and communication solutions. The technological upgrade and equipment of the system are expected to significantly improve its ability to give a coordinated response to large-scale cyberattacks against the backdrop of a growing number of threats.

The National Cybersecurity System as a common platform

Simeon Kartselianski, an expert at "Information Services", presented the architecture of the NCS. “The creation of the system is a process in which we brought together the efforts of all stakeholders in order to reach the right solutions,” he commented. In his words, “the architecture has one main task – to protect cyberspace and all electronic systems of the state in the event of hybrid attacks against Bulgaria’s infrastructure”.

At the event, the vulnerability scanning system was demonstrated, along with a set of technological solutions selected after a detailed analysis, which will be provided to the participating institutions. “The goal is to achieve full synchronisation with everything we will implement at national level,” Kartselianski added. He stressed that the National Cybersecurity Contact Point, which will unite the national and sectoral computer security incident response teams, will be responsible for prevention and continuous monitoring of processes, with the possibility of integrating private-sector representatives as well.

Project funding and strategic framework

Project BG16RFPR002-2.018-0001-C01 "Enhancing national capabilities for coordination and response to incidents related to cybersecurity" is being implemented under Administrative Agreement No. BG16RFPR002-2.018-0001-C01/06.11.2025 for direct award of non-repayable financial aid under Priority 2 "Digital transformation of the public sector" of the Programme "Research, Innovation and Digitalisation for Smart Transformation" 2021–2027.

The total budget of the project is BGN 161,861,000.00, of which BGN 132,837,390.78 are funds from the European Union and BGN 29,023,609.22 represent national co-financing. The beneficiary of the project is the Ministry of e-Government through the “Network and Information Security” Directorate.

The project activities are key to achieving the objectives of Priority 2 "Digital transformation of the public sector" and fit into the broader vision of the "Research, Innovation and Digitalisation for Smart Transformation" 2021–2027 Programme, aimed at a more secure, modern and sustainable digital state infrastructure.