Meloni convenes opposition after email threats to 3,778 Italian schools

This is a translation of the original article in Portuguese. Read the original (Português).

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met opposition leaders at Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the government, to discuss cybersecurity. The meeting took place after 3,778 schools across the country received emails containing threats. The information comes from the Italian newspaper Italia Oggi.

The government ruled out evacuating the school buildings. The senders of the messages have not yet been identified, and the hypotheses under investigation include Russian, Iranian and other groups.

The episode adds to another recent problem. According to Italia Oggi, a hacker attack hit Microsoft and knocked out, for more than a day, a major email system across Europe.

There is no consensus on the nature of this wave. An article in the newspaper asks whether the attacks are hybrid warfare, meaning coordinated action by a state or its allies against another country, or ordinary cybercrime. The text points to the so-called dark web, where tools such as Tor and VPNs guarantee anonymity to attackers.

The numbers help measure the scale of the problem. A report from Clusit, the Italian association for IT security, recorded 4,911 serious incidents in the first half of the year, more than double the previous half-year. Experts interviewed by the newspaper say digital attacks can generate fear even without causing real damage, and can reach cars, supermarket chains and health services.

Small and medium-sized businesses appear as the weak link. Data from Italy’s Interior Ministry show a 4.4% rise in computer fraud in 2025. In 2024, 15% of small businesses suffered security incidents, below the European average of 19.9%. Even so, Italy leads the European Union in the total number of reported cybercrimes.

For Brazilian readers, the case matters because everyday services, such as corporate email, depend on platforms used worldwide. An outage like Microsoft’s can affect companies and professionals in Brazil, which use the same tools.

Reporting from Italia Oggi (Especialistas analisam riscos de ataques cibernéticos a serviços essenciais, p. 6 (Itália)), Italia Oggi (Meloni convoca líderes da oposição diante de emergência, p. 6 (Itália)), Italia Oggi (Pequenas e médias empresas italianas têm defesas fracas contra crimes digitais, p. 7 (Itália)), Italia Oggi (Ataque cibernético a Microsoft afeta e-mails na Europa, p. 14 (Europa)), Italia Oggi (Alertas de ameaças por e-mail em 3.778 escolas italianas, p. 14 (Itália)), Italia Oggi (Ataques hackers na Itália e na Europa têm origem incerta, p. 19 (Itália)).