Thousands of schools in the UK, Italy and Ireland were targeted by threatening emails, with investigators tracing some messages to a hacked Taiwanese university account
A wave of bomb threats targeted schools across the UK, Italy and Ireland on Wednesday, prompting evacuations and widespread disruption.
More than 300 schools in Northern Ireland and at least 470 in Scotland received threatening emails, police said. Authorities assessed the messages as hoaxes.
According to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the emails originated outside the UK. “Our enquiries are ongoing, however, at this stage we consider risk to the public as low,” PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally said.
More than 6,300 schools in Italy received bomb threats, with evacuations and lockdowns reported in several areas, including the northern Emilia-Romagna region.
According to ANSA, the email was sent from a compromised account at Dayeh University, a private institution in Taiwan. It was signed “Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan” and also contained a threat against Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“We won’t let an anonymous email decide our children’s school calendar,” Meloni said in a video posted on social media.
Reuters reported that some European officials suspect Russia may be behind the bomb threats, citing the conflict in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed such allegations as part of a smear campaign.
Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Russia was involved in a cyberattack targeting refrigeration systems at French supermarkets.
“Such baseless accusations against our country, blaming it for virtually everything, are unfortunately becoming a persistent trend in European countries. I reiterate that this accusation is absolutely absurd,” he said.
France later blamed Iran for the cyberattack, an allegation Tehran denied. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the French government of “shifting blame for its failures onto others.”
