Threats of attacks against educational establishments: ENT messaging services of schools, colleges and high schools suspended “as a preventive measure”

While hundreds of educational establishments have been facing threats of attacks for several days, the Minister of National Education, Nicole Belloubet, announced on Thursday March 28 the suspension “as a preventive measure” of messaging in all digital spaces of work (ENT). ENTs connect teachers, students and parents of educational establishments, in schools, middle schools and high schools.

“Following the hacks and threats, I decided to preventively suspend all messaging in digital spaces in our schools,” she posted on the social network we are going to deploy a real digital shield. »

In total, 323 threats, in 44 departments and 20 academies, have been launched in France since the middle of last week, the education ministry told AFP on Thursday.

A 17-year-old young man arrested in Hauts-de-Seine

A little earlier on Thursday, a 17-year-old young man was arrested and placed in police custody in Malakoff, in Hauts-de-Seine, in the investigation into threats of attacks sent to establishments schools, Agence France-Presse learned from the Paris prosecutor’s office. The arrest was made by police officers from the cybercrime section of the Paris public prosecutor’s office. The suspect “has not yet been interviewed,” said the prosecution.

The Minister of Education, Nicole Belloubet, assured Wednesday, during a hearing at the National Assembly, that “at this stage there is no massive data leak or serious attack on our information system “. “There is no global digital divide,” she said.

“We have no indication that these were attacks other than French,” the minister declared on France Inter on Tuesday. “When the perpetrators are known, the sanctions will be very heavy. This can lead to prison sentences. And there have already been (…) false bomb threats [for which] prison sentences (…) have been handed down,” she added.

These facts come in a context of maximum alert in the face of the threat of attack, following the attack which left at least 137 dead Friday evening in a concert hall near Moscow, carried out by an “entity” of the Islamic State organization, at the origin, according to Emmanuel Macron, of “several recent attempts” on French soil.