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Cyber ​​war in Serbia?

2022-05-20 18:35:53Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA SANJA KLAJIç
Cyber ​​war in Serbia?
Cyber ​​war in Serbia?

Anonymous threatening e-mails have aroused fear and terror among the citizens of Belgrade. Schools and other institutions are affected. Does this have to do with the context of the war in Ukraine?

Belgrade high school student Aleksa Plemic wanted to leave for school when the terrible news came through the messenger service on viber, that there is a bomb in the school building. "This was of course a great friend," says Gordana, the student's mother. "We had no idea how to react in such a situation."

Similarly on Monday morning (16.5.2022) such threats were distributed to several million other families in Serbia - because such bomb threats, according to Serbian police, were distributed to at least 200 primary and secondary schools. throughout the country, mainly in the capital Belgrade. The older pupils, meanwhile, who were in school were immediately sent home; the younger ones were sheltered by teachers in safe places and waited for their parents to come and pick them up.

"This shocked us parents much more than the children," Gordana Plemic told DW. She is the president of the "Parents" association, which takes care of students' problems. "Parents report that schools have reacted quickly," she said with gratitude. "However, in the coming days it will not be easy for them to send their children to school, because they do not know how it can develop further or what these threats mean. "We do not know how safe our children are, if one day a real alarm comes or what can happen without first being informed."

Wave of e-mail threats

Since March 2022, Serbia has been the target of constant anonymous bomb threats. At first, the threats were directed against flights from Belgrade to Russia. Meanwhile, their number has increased so much that the police themselves no longer know how many threats have been sent and where. A statement from the Interior Ministry said that hundreds of threatening messages had been sent to 48 areas and institutions. In addition to schools, bridges, shopping malls, restaurants, train stations, power plants, water supply lines and hospitals, as well as the private house of President Aleksandar Vucic and the Russian embassy have received such messages.

"Threatening messages were sent from e-mail addresses to google, Proton, Eunet, Yandex as well as anonymous phone calls," according to the Serbian Interior Ministry. So far, the regional origins of 19 such addresses have been identified in Serbia and abroad. Eight threatening emails have come from Poland, four from the Gambia, and two respectively from Nigeria and Ukraine, Slovenia and Russia.

Difficult investigations

"In e-mails sent from servers, whose managers have data protection according to the business model, it is very difficult to get information about the sender," explains cyber security expert from Belgrade Adel Abusara for DW. "In the case of the Swiss provider Proton-Mail, the Ministry of Interior of the affected country should act through Europol, which then addresses the Swiss police and the latter contacts the local justice authorities", says Abusara.

If the relevant court approves, then the firm is required to find the possessor of the e-mail - which e.g. to the Proton provider in most cases this is denied. "Almost always the case goes to trial," says Adel Abusara, "and this can take time, because the Email Provider values ​​the protection of its users' data and has teams of lawyers." "They are protected against any request for the disclosure of user data."

The intention to put pressure on Serbia?

The reasons for such a massive wave of anonymous bomb threats in Serbia are so far publicly speculated only by representatives of the Serbian government. "We are the only country in Europe that has not imposed sanctions on Russia and the pressure on us is extraordinary," said Prime Minister Brnabic.

Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin stated that the bomb threats were an attempt to force Serbia to "give up its independent foreign policy". "These attacks are not carried out or initiated by specific persons. "We are dealing with well-organized and very costly hacker mass attacks, directed by various centers for a hybrid war," said the Serbian minister.

We are not dealing with cyber terrorism

Cybernetics experts say that in the meantime it is difficult to interpret the motives for the bomb threats, but it can never be a terrorist attack or cyber terrorism. "The fact that a threatening e-mail comes from a Russian or Swiss server does not mean that you are being attacked by Switzerland or Russia, but by someone who has used the servers in these countries," explains security expert Adel Abusara.

Also not only in Serbia there are occasional bomb threats, but also in neighboring countries such as Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Romania. "Three years ago, a teenager threatened via e-mail to thousands of schools and kindergartens, which caused a mass evacuation of these institutions:" Such things happen. The problem is, how quickly can we react to this through legal means? ” / DW


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