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<\/p>\n
A wave of bomb threats targeted schools across the UK, Italy and Ireland on Wednesday, prompting evacuations and widespread disruption.
\nMore than 300 schools in Northern Ireland and at least 470 in Scotland received threatening emails, police said. Authorities assessed the messages as hoaxes.
\nAccording to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the emails originated outside the UK. \u201cOur enquiries are ongoing, however, at this stage we consider risk to the public as low,\u201d PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally said.
\nMore than 6,300 schools in Italy received bomb threats, with evacuations and lockdowns reported in several areas, including the northern Emilia-Romagna region.
\nAccording to ANSA, the email was sent from a compromised account at Dayeh University, a private institution in Taiwan. It was signed \u201cMikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan\u201d and also contained a threat against Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe won\u2019t let an anonymous email decide our children\u2019s school calendar,\u201d Meloni said in a video posted on social media.
\nReuters 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.
\nEarlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Russia was involved in a cyberattack targeting refrigeration systems at French supermarkets.
\n\u201cSuch 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,\u201d he said.
\nFrance later blamed Iran for the cyberattack, an allegation Tehran denied. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the French government of \u201cshifting blame for its failures onto others.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t