North Macedonia links Russia to bomb hoax, says crypto used to hide location
In a brief segment on national television on Monday, North Macedonia’s former prime minister and current interior minister, Oliver Spasovski, said that some recent bomb threats have been traced back to IP addresses in Russia and Iran, along with cryptocurrency payments to VPNs. services.
North Macedonia and other Balkan nations have been bombarded with daily fake bomb threats since October, causing widespread disruption to schools, hospitals, hotels, shopping malls, museums, sports arenas and more. Over 700 threats and 400 evacuations have taken place across the country – no explosives have been found so far.
“In recent days, emails have been sent from addresses in Iran and Russia, and payments to VPN services made by cryptocurrencies, which makes tracking difficult,” Spasovski said on Television 24. Further details were not shared.
This is the first time that North Macedonia’s government has publicly linked the disturbing bomb threats to Russia and Iran. Last week, Spasovski said the police had strong indications of where the threats came from abroad, but still did not elaborate. In previous statements, current Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski alluded to these “terrorist acts” stemming from its pro-Ukraine stance, which reportedly worsened after North Macedonia joined sanctions against Russia.
This unprecedented form of terrorism, which the government refers to as “hybrid warfare”, has had major consequences for public systems. On February 8, a cyber attack against the state health insurance fund left the insured without access to health services and health workers without pay. IT experts spent 12 days to fully restore the system.
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Online education temporarily returned to North Macedonia, as bomb threats routinely sent children and teachers to safety until police bomb squads could clear the schools. When the threat was identified as a hoax, another day of learning was lost. The Union of Secondary School Students estimates that in the first half of this current academic year, around 10 weeks of classes were lost due to hoax bomb threats.
It is still unclear how many false bomb threats have been linked to Iran and Russia. However, authorities have stated that a handful of threats made were “copycat” attempts by students to further disrupt classes.
North Macedonia is stepping up cyber security measures in response to fraud threats
On 21 February, the authorities in North Macedonia pledged to adopt high-priority measures to improve security in the public sector and deal effectively with these bomb threats, particularly in health facilities and schools.
Spasovski said new instructions on risk assessment will allow schools to remain open going forward, but still stressed the need for secrecy about what those specific measures will be.
“We have created an operational team of different participating institutions with their own experts, and we are looking for appropriate solutions to find a different approach to electronic threats,” said Spasovski.
“As minister, I brought with me new guidelines for action, and from Friday the schools are operating according to these guidelines.”
In addition, new security measures in North Macedonia include:
- State administration must appoint a person to report security incidents in a timely manner to the National Computer Incident Response Center (MKD-CIRT).
- Training in cyber security is now required for employees in government administration.
- The government recommends MKD-CIRT file reports on cyber security controls of major institutions.
North Macedonia joined NATO in 2020 and opened talks to join the EU in July 2022. In March 2022, Moscow placed the nation on its list of “unfriendly countries”. Last month, the EU announced emergency loans of up to €100 million to North Macedonia as part of economic efforts to support nations in crisis.
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