European security agencies are investigating whether coordinated bomb threats that targeted dozens of European flights this week may have originated in Russia. This was reported by the Financial Times, citing intelligence officials according to whom a cross-border investigation is underway between European services to trace the origin of the threats. Some European intelligence officials believe that the Russian origin is the most probable, in terms of motive, operational methods, precedents and first clues that have emerged. One working hypothesis is that the threats are from pro-Kremlin activists or hacker groups.
Europol has called an investigative meeting for next week with the police forces of all the countries involved in the cyber attacks. Even in Italy, hit in recent days by hacker attacks and false bomb alerts via email on airline flights, elements are being collected which will then be shared at a European level.
European officials warn, however, that the road to concrete attribution of responsibility for the false bomb scares is still long and that it may not be possible to reach a definitive conclusion. Even in the case of the hypothesis of threats from pro-Kremlin activists, the FT underlines, it remains to be established whether and to what extent the Russian secret services directed, encouraged or authorized the operations. Investigators do not believe that those responsible represent a real threat to European aviation. The emails were sent from different anonymous accounts and from different geographical areas: one was traced to Colombia. Many messages were written in the recipients' language. In an email sent to Irish media yesterday, the perpetrators claimed to have "experimented with multithreading" and recruited European residents, as well as gaining access to compromised devices, servers and accounts.
A total of 35 European flights were affected by bomb threats on 3, 5 and 6 November, according to the balance sheet provided to ANSA by the press office of Eurocontrol, the European organization for the safety of air navigation. "Eurocontrol is aware of bomb threats against 14 flights on 6 November, 14 flights on 5 November and 7 flights on 3 November 2026", specifies the organization, clarifying that yesterday's data is still approximate. On November 6, compared to approximately 29,550 flights in the European network, reports represented 0.047% of traffic, compared to 0.049% on November 5, when 28,488 flights were recorded, and 0.026% on November 3, when there were 26,278 flights. The alerts "have therefore had no impact on delays in the air traffic network", underlines Eurocontrol, specifying that it is monitoring the situation and working "closely with airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and other organizations across Europe to limit any disruption to air traffic flows". For questions relating to security threats, the European organization refers to airlines, airports and the competent national authorities.
