High faculties in Île-de-France obtained threats of assault and a video of beheading | EUROtoday

Published on : 03/21/2024 – 1:19 p.m.Modified : 03/21/2024 – 4:05 p.m.

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After a wave of bomb threats in a number of institutions within the fall, messages threatening a terrorist assault, accompanied by a video of beheadings, have been despatched since Wednesday March 20 to excessive faculties within the Paris area by way of hacked digital workspaces (ENT).

“Around fifty” institutions are affected at this stage, the Île-de-France area advised AFP.

These, “mainly high schools” have obtained “threats” with “apology and provocation of terrorism” since Wednesday, i.e. “several serious offenses”, underlined the Ministry of Education.

The ministry “condemns these serious threats”, which “passed through the ENT, the school’s internal mailbox or even the Pronote site”. It “also ensures that there is no compromise of the networks due to the sending of these messages”.

The ENT is a digital area which serves as a hyperlink between lecturers, college students and fogeys. Pronote is software program utilized by instructional institutions to speak scholar grades.

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Psychological help

“Specialized investigation services are being mobilized to identify the perpetrator(s),” added the ministry, which “offers psychological support to all children or adults who have watched the shocking videos despite themselves.”

“The police services, immediately notified, are doing what is necessary to ensure the safety of the students,” he assured.

Establishments of the academy of Créteil (which brings collectively Seine-et-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne), of Paris and round twenty within the academy of Versailles (Val-d'Oise , Yvelines, Essonne and Hauts-de-Seine) obtained these threats, indicated the rectorates involved.

According to a police supply, a message saying an explosive assault was despatched to no less than 5 excessive faculties in Yvelines on Wednesday night and throughout the night time from Wednesday to Thursday. “The perpetrator(s) hacked a student’s email address in order to broadcast the message and a beheading video on all the boxes.”

Video exhibiting “individuals being beheaded”

In Val-d'Oise, all college students and employees on the Jean-Monnet highschool in Franconville, for instance, obtained a message “threatening the establishment of a terrorist attack for Thursday March 21, 2024”, indicated a police supply. This e-mail was “accompanied by links giving access to a video showing individuals being beheaded”.

In Seine-et-Marne, on the Jean-Moulin highschool in Torcy, a message was “sent on social networks indicating that C4 [une variété d’explosifs, NDLR] was hidden throughout the establishment in the name of Allah,” according to another police source.

The Île-de-France region announced that it had “filed a criticism” Thursday morning “to the Paris cyber prosecutor's workplace following the creation of a fraudulent website aimed toward hacking the regional ENT”.

Following this hack, “fraudulent emails were sent to high school students in Île-de-France with threats of Islamist attack,” she added.

The president of the region, Valérie Pécresse, denounces “extremely serious facts, which call for exemplary sanctions”. The ENT of Île-de-France has been suspended.

Opening an investigation

The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed to AFP that its anti-cybercrime section had been “knowledgeable for the second of two complaints regarding cyberattacks to the detriment of Parisian ENTs”.

“An investigation has been opened into charges of fraudulent access and maintenance in an automated data processing system, and fraudulent introduction of data,” he added. He said he was “making comparisons with similar facts brought before other prosecutors”.

These threats come after a wave of false bomb alerts which affected a number of educational establishments in the fall (800 alerts according to government figures in mid-November).

Read additionally“We don’t want a bunker”: after the Arras assault, college safety in query

They multiplied after the jihadist assault which price the lifetime of trainer Dominique Bernard, in Arras, on October 13.

An interministerial assembly on the safety of instructional institutions is happening Thursday afternoon underneath the management of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, within the presence of the Minister of National Education, Nicole Belloubet, and the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti.

With AFP