Some 1,700 schools in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have received hoax bomb threats by email, on the same day thousands of Italian schools were sent similar messages.
The emails arrived on the morning of November 11, the day before Dublin was due to host about 50 European leaders at the European Political Community (EPC) summit.
Police Scotland confirmed that around 1,000 schools had been contacted through distribution lists. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Sutherland said the messages had been intended to create “mistrust and misinformation”.
In a statement, the force said there was “nothing to suggest that they represent a credible threat” or any wider danger to the public. It advised that there was no need to evacuate schools or keep children away from lessons on the strength of the emails alone.
Schools in Edinburgh were briefly evacuated as a precaution, according to STV, and every school in Orkney received the message. Police Scotland’s Cyber and Fraud Unit is leading the investigation, working with law enforcement partners in the UK and abroad.
In Northern Ireland, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said more than 300 schools had reported receiving the email. It said the message came from outside the UK and was being treated as a hoax.
Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally said police considered the risk to the public “low”. The Education Authority noted the message resembled a bogus threat sent to schools in the region on October 19.
South of the border, hundreds of schools received the email, including around 400 in the southern province of Munster. The news site said the messages to schools came from a different address to the one used to contact media organisations the same morning.
An Garda Síochána, the Irish police service, said it was aware of “a generic communication” sent to a number of educational establishments. It assessed the threat as not credible and did not advise any school to evacuate.
The Garda National Security Intelligence Service is investigating, The Journal reported.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the Dáil that gardaí had received “several hundred” calls from schools. He said the Department of Justice had been in contact with the force at senior level.
The Department of Education wrote to all schools advising them to call the emergency services on 999 and to follow Garda advice. Education Minister Hildegarde Naughton said gardaí had told schools there was no need to evacuate.
In Italy, the education ministry said the email had reached about 6,000 schools, though not all of them were evacuated.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni convened a meeting at Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the Italian Government. She concluded there was no sign of concrete danger and that the messages were meant to spread fear and disorder rather than to strike.
Italian and Irish media reported that the messages were signed by “Mikhail Andropov”. The surname is that of Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader who ran the KGB for 15 years before heading the Communist Party.
The same pseudonym appeared on bomb threats sent to RTÉ, Bulgaria’s Nova TV and Sky News on November 6. Those emails claimed responsibility for hoax alerts that had disrupted dozens of passenger flights across Europe that week.
Reuters said it had been unable to establish the sender’s identity or whether the flight and newsroom threats came from the same source.
The email to Irish schools carried the subject line “DEATH IS NEAR” and was sent from a Taiwanese domain. European security services are trying to establish whether it originated there.
ANSA reported that the Italian messages had been sent from a compromised Taiwanese account.
Extra.ie also reported that gardaí and other European police forces are examining whether a foreign power used artificial intelligence (AI) agents to send such a volume of messages in a short time. Russia is among the states being considered, the site said, though none has been confirmed as responsible.
One theory under examination is that the operation sought to disrupt Ireland’s hosting of the EPC summit. EU leaders are due to hold an informal meeting in Dublin on November 13, with AI as the only item on the agenda.
The wave is the latest in a series. On October 19, emails sent to schools in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Hungary and Serbia were signed “Allahu Akbar”, according to Northern Ireland Education Minister Paul Givan.
On November 2, an email claiming to come from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reached 271 Italian schools.
Garda Deputy Commissioner Paul Cleary issued guidance on November 10 in response to what the force described as increased activity in hoax and non-credible bomb threats. He urged anyone receiving such a threat to call 999 immediately.
