Taiwan university email linked to bomb threats against 6,000 Italian schools

Detailed summary

A Taiwan university's alumni email account was allegedly hacked and used to send bomb threat emails to more than 6,000 public schools across Italy on Wednesday (local time), according to Italian media reports.

Taipei, Nov. 12 (CNA) A Taiwan university's alumni email account was allegedly hacked and used to send bomb threat emails to more than 6,000 public schools across Italy on Wednesday (local time), according to Italian media reports.

Taiwan's representative office in Italy stated Wednesday night that Taiwan condemns any threatening behavior and that relevant Taiwanese agencies and organizations are willing to cooperate with Italian authorities by providing technical assistance in investigating the case.

Screenshots of emails published by Italian media showed that messages sent at around 9:50 a.m. Wednesday were from an account under Dayeh University's domain in Taiwan.

The account displayed the name "Liu Fang-chun" (劉芳君) in traditional Chinese characters.

The private university in Changhua County said that an initial investigation found that an alumnus' email account had sent a large number of emails and appeared to have been hacked.

The school suspended the account, while the cause of the incident and the identity of the actual sender remain under investigation, Dayeh University said.

Although the emails appeared to have been sent from a Taiwan account, they were signed with a Russian name, Mikhail Andropov, who claimed to be the leader of a virtual group called "Vilayat di Misoginistan."

The emails claimed that bombs fitted with remote detonators had been installed at the schools.

Multiple schools urgently evacuated students and asked parents to pick them up at short notice.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Focus Taiwan (CNA). To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.