New net in a bomb alert case following a hacking

New judicial net after hacks of digital workspaces of the national education, these computer intrusions followed by false bomb alerts that rot the life of schools. The Paris prosecutor’s office has in fact just announced the indictment, Saturday, September 16, of two teenagers. Aged about 15 and living in the Bordeaux agglomeration, they have been placed under judicial supervision.

The justice suspects them of having hacked students’ digital workspaces, this virtual binder centralizing information about schooling which can also act as a messenger. After taking control of the account, the hackers would launch bomb alerts or fake attack threats. A total of 27 false alerts were counted around the month of June. This has led them today to criminal proceedings for threatening death or destruction, disclosure of false information and attacks on an automated data processing system in an organized gang.

Sixty students

According to the investigation, entrusted to the police officers of the Central Office for the fight against crime related to information and communication technologies, the two teenagers allegedly hacked the accounts of about sixty students. The justice system has not specified how the defendants would have taken control of its accounts. However, during a previous wave of false bomb alerts, a sheet from the public interest group Cybermalveillance had been distributed to students and parents. This sheet warned users against infections by stealers, these software that steal login data.

During police investigations, several pieces of software of this type had indeed been found on students’ computers. Victims were asked to disable their antivirus before downloading the program. These malware, including the Redline software, according to Le Parisien, were presented as fake video game extensions. These were supposed to allow the viewing of gaming tips videos.

Already indictments

It is unknown at the moment if the two teenagers indicted in September have links with the three other boys, aged 14 to 17, who had been implicated in February 2023 in a similar case. Fifteen schools had to be evacuated after the dissemination of threatening messages from hacked digital workspaces.

The investigators had found their tracks thanks to a link to the Discord social network, called “Bomb”, inserted in one of the threatening messages, explained The Parisian. The police officers had then found the administrators of the Discord server, who had become the number one suspects in the investigation. One of the teenagers, arrested, had confessed to a lack of adrenaline and boredom to explain his malicious actions.