Many schools across Ireland, Northern Ireland and Italy received hoax threats on November 11, but is there a way to spot if a threat is real or a hoax?
This is one question that was posed to Helen McEntee, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ireland, by Newstalk Breakfast this morning.
It's not just schools and media outlets that have been targeted in recent weeks, with a number of flights being affected across Europe too.
With the rising popularity of AI, all someone has to do is enter a command for these kinds of threats and they could be sent out, as Anton Savage put it, "willy nilly".
But what is the actual recommendation to businesses and schools on how to react, even if you suspect the threat is a hoax? And will hoaxes like these become a more regular occurrence?
Ms McEntee replied: "Well, I hope not, is the straight answer. And personally, just to commend, not just the team here in Newstalk or RTÉ, but indeed the many principals and parents for the way in which they've responded.
"I think first and foremost, when you're not used to a situation like that, and thankfully, this is not a natural occurrence, this is not something that happens on a regular basis. People will always err on the side of caution and want to take precaution.
"I spoke to some principals, I spoke to staff and parents yesterday because we had some of that in my own county as well.
"And different schools responded in different ways. And I appreciate that. I think that's a normal reaction.
"But every person that I spoke to had had immediate engagement with the Gardaí, who then re-engaged with them, who gave them advice as what to do. But I think we need to learn from yesterday."
As it stands, the recommendation remains that the first thing to do when an email, or other form of contact is made, that appears to be a threat, is to ring the Gardaí and ring 999.
Gardaí are assessing if any other recommendations need to be made in relation to first reaction, and will be engaging with schools in particular with guidance.
Ms McEntee continued: "The advice is to ring Gardaí immediately, but also to make sure that if you feel that there is in any way a threat or a risk, that schools can make that decision to evacuate.
"What we can clearly see from yesterday is that this was one email that went out to hundreds of schools and it just shows how easy it is to do this.
"We saw hoaxes last week with planes where planes had to be diverted. And we're now seeing that this is happening across [Europe] not just Ireland. So we saw it in Northern Ireland with schools and Italy as well.
"So there's a concerted effort to engage with our different agencies across Europe to see are these interconnected."
Main image: Helen McEntee Pic: Alamy
