Maybe Bulgaria differs from most countries, but security guards seem to be mostly theatre. Private actors are generally very limited in what they can do to secure property, and they're usually required to basically call the police and hope the police show up in time to do something, which is often unlikely in either the countryside or industrial areas.
As providers in the business of critical infrastructure they need to comply to the HIGHEST physical and digital security requirements, which includes taking preventive measures against acts of terrorism.
Not much is known about this case yet though, it's possible that their preventive procedures failed but their resilience procedures worked (was Starlink down?), and they reported the incident in compliance to EU CER and NIS2.
Either way, I'm sure they'll get an audit for EU CER compliance now, which will create a list of mandated immediate actions...
It doesn't take a gatling gun to prevent that, basic physical security and stronger incident-handling will suffice.
As resentment towards datacenters grows in the US you might even see increasingly creative acts of vandalism and other attacks in places that are not considered war zones. A pipe bomb tossed it the vents of AC units ups the game of "basic physical security". And you don't have to get that crazy. A $100 drone can drop a bag of BBs.
Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations.
Sharing information:
In Europe, the airspace above a property is not owned by the company owning the land.
It's owned, monitored and guarded by the local government. Missiles aiming at a data center would first penetrate the national airspace of the country, as well as unlicensed drones do. This is a violation of national airspace and a crime against the country.
Drones are still a weak spot of national security though, as we keep seeing all around the world. But governments in Europe have no doubt that it is their responsibility to secure their airspace, and there are EU-wide activities to fix that.
> "Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations."
From all that is known, this incident is about vetted access control and having a sufficient secure perimeter around your facilities.
In both US and Europe, a data center is considered a critical infrastructure and needs to adhere to the maximum physical and digital security requirements, which is much more substantial than this.
In this case, again, two people apparently penetrated security and put equipment on fire.
This might as well be the warehouse of a supermarket. It's a gap in their security that this happened, not a lapse of the government.
I read the statement as the government introduced additional security measures "even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners". These measures weren't "surface-to-air missiles, flak cannons, Gatling guns, and anti-air radars". Clearly more could have been done before digging into the bag of silly options. The owners just didn't do it.
There's a fine line between hyperbola to make a point, and hyperbola as a silly attempt to blur the issue. You comment is on the wrong side.
When those people aren’t around Bulgaria is incredibly peaceful country.
You install gates, raise walls, limit access, hire personnel, etc.
The more you need to secure whatever it is, the more layers you have.
In general, any respectable warehouse would have an external wall with a single entrance to the parking, and then a second entrance to the building itself.
This. Police are just the clean-up crew who come 20 minutes after, and fill in the paperwork proving that something bad did indeed happen to you, that you can then use for your lawsuit or insurance claim, nothing more.
Unless you're a politician or the billionaire owner of an island, they're not gonna do much more to actually prevent or solve your problem.
An individual will be informed how not having a lock on the door was a failure in individual responsibility to prevent harm against yourself/others.
But an operator of digital infrastructure might get audited for compliance of the critical infrastructure directive/act. In the EU fines for such violations can be as high as €10 million or 2% of global turnover.
uh huh