Hoax bomb threats reached about 6,300 schools across Italy on Nov. 11, 2026, prompting at least 300 schools to evacuate. The threats followed cyberattacks on refrigeration systems at French blood banks and European supermarkets. Photo courtesy of UIL Scuola Lombardia, the Lombardy branch of Italy’s UIL school workers’ union.
Bomb threat emails reached about 6,300 of Italy’s 7,476 state schools on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026, prompting at least 300 schools from Milan to Rome to evacuate. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called an afternoon security meeting at Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the Italian government.
The emails marked the third wave of threats against Italian schools in a month and followed hoax bomb threats against more than 50 European flights between Nov. 2 and 6.
The threats came amid cyberattacks on refrigeration systems in Europe and an investigation into suspected cyberattacks on freezers at U.S. military bases.
Meloni said there was no danger and that those behind the threats wanted to create fear and chaos. Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara told La7 that “it is clear from the content of the email that the actual risk is virtually nonexistent.” He said he believed the emails were part of a cyberattack.
Discussing the school emails, Valditara cited other incidents. “They attacked flights, supermarkets, if I remember correctly even hospitals,” he said. “Who is behind it is difficult to imagine at this moment. The judiciary will conduct its investigations.” Defense Minister Guido Crosetto called the threats a strategy to spread fear.
The first wave came on Oct. 19, when about 100 schools received emails, some stating, “We have placed explosives in the name of Sharia.” On Nov. 2, threats written in Arabic reached about 280 schools.
A message reported to have reached 271 schools that day claimed to speak for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Italian authorities have yet to verify that claim.
The Nov. 11 email was signed “Mikhail Andropov,” who called himself the leader of the “Vilayat of Misoginistan.” “We have come to annihilate you,” the email said.
“To carry out a genocide against Italians.” It claimed a bomb had been placed in the engine of the prime minister’s car and threatened to kill survivors with knives.
The message came from the apparently compromised account of a former Taiwanese student. A follow-up email bearing the same signature reached about 1,800 schools on Thursday, Nov. 12, from addresses with Philippine domains.
The same name appeared in a message claiming responsibility for the previous week’s flight threats and in threats sent to Irish public broadcaster RTÉ and Bulgaria’s Nova TV.
The alias recalls Yuri Andropov, who led the KGB from 1967 to 1982 and the Soviet Union from November 1982 until his death in February 1984.
The Islamic State used the term vilayat for its claimed provinces. “Misoginistan” echoes the “Fighters of the Male State” signature on the Nov. 5 flight threats, a reference to the Russian ultranationalist and anti-woman movement Male State. Reuters reported that the pseudonym could indicate Russian involvement or an attempt to direct suspicion at Moscow.
Italian authorities have yet to identify who sent the school emails. The Genoa prosecutor’s office opened an investigation and assigned it to the Polizia Postale, which investigates online crime, and the Digos, the police’s political and counterterrorism branch. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said it was premature to say whether the threats were coordinated.
“There is a trail of events that, at least in the form of emulation, has the common trait of trying to tie up the public system through alarms that then, many times, fortunately, turn out to be unfounded,” he said.
After the flight hoaxes, Meloni said on Nov. 6 that the threats against flights and the attacks on French blood banks and food supplies showed that civilian infrastructure was under attack. She said investigators had yet to determine whether the incidents were connected.
The attacks on food supplies began in France on Oct. 12, when hackers overrode refrigeration controls at about 350 establishments, raising temperatures in freezers and cold rooms and forcing supermarkets to discard spoiled food.
NPR reported that the affected retailers included 150 to 200 Intermarché stores, nearly 100 Coopérative U outlets and an unspecified number of Carrefour stores.
French officials identified internet-connected refrigeration controllers made by the Danish company Danfoss as one route the attackers used. France’s national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, opened an investigation.
Overnight on Nov. 1–2, hackers targeted refrigeration systems at three regional sites run by France’s national blood service, the Établissement français du sang (EFS). The attackers gained access through remote-monitoring software used by Coolworld, the EFS refrigeration contractor, and changed settings in cold rooms storing plasma for transfusions and for making medicines.
The French weekly Le Canard enchaîné reported that the hackers tried to raise the temperature settings from minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit) to 110 degrees Celsius (230 degrees Fahrenheit).
Monitoring systems detected the changes, and the EFS said that “no health consequences have been identified, and no blood products were lost,” The Associated Press reported.
A separate wave of attacks in early November raised freezer temperatures at stores in Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Estonia, Ireland and the Netherlands.
On Nov. 10, France summoned Iran’s ambassador after accusing Tehran of carrying out the cyberattack that disabled refrigerators in hundreds of French supermarkets. Iran called the accusation baseless and hostile.
In the United States, officials suspect Iran-linked hackers caused freezer failures at military bases, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to Nextgov/FCW, a federal technology news outlet.
The suspected attacks began in late August and affected about six commissaries, the grocery stores on U.S. military bases. U.S. Cyber Command and Defense Department law enforcement units are investigating with help from French authorities.
Reuters first reported that the Pentagon was treating the freezer failures as possible cyberattacks. Nextgov/FCW reported that the assessment could change as investigators learn more.
On Nov. 5, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture and Transportation issued a joint fact sheet warning that attackers are targeting electronic temperature controls at grocery stores and cold storage facilities.
The agencies said interference with those systems could create fire hazards and expose consumers to products stored at unsafe temperatures.
“Every organization that depends on refrigeration and monitoring systems should assume it could be a target,” said Chris Butera, CISA’s acting executive assistant director for cybersecurity.
Brett Leatherman, the FBI’s cyber branch operations director, said the bureau is “seeing these systems targeted across critical infrastructure sectors globally.” The fact sheet leaves the attackers unnamed.
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