Coordination between agencies, email service providers a must

Hameed Ashraf | NT Bureau

Bengaluru, I n recent years, a wave of mass 'hoax' bomb threat emails have been received by schools, hospitals and several government officials in metropolitan cities across the country.

According to a report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there were 1,278 hoax bomb threats reported in Indian schools in 2021, up from 989 in 2020. This represents an increase of nearly 30% in just one year.

Until 2024, there has been a disturbing increase in the number of such threats. While the reasons for the increase in hoax bomb threats are not fully understood, the police are taking steps to address this problem.

Several states have passed laws that make it a crime to make hoax bomb threats. Recently, the NCRB issued guidelines for schools on how to respond to these threats.

The act of making hoax bomb threats is punishable under Chapter 22 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with criminal intimidation, insult and annoyance.

However the sheer volume of threats has created an environment where law enforcement agencies were stretched thin, struggling to adequately respond to each potential threat while performing their regular duties.

A senior official from Karnataka State Cyber Crime Division (Crime Investigation Department) said that there is a clear difference in intent between bad actors wanting to inform authorities of an actual bomb threat and bad actors wanting to incite panic and chaos within a state or targeted organization.

The main goal of the latter is to make sure their message is conveyed to as many people as possible.

Dialogue will help

Earlier in the 1990s when landline phones were new, government officials started receiving "hoax" threats over phone.

A decade later, there were Rs 1 coin box phones available in small shops across the cities, which were also misused for this purpose.

Now with so many innovative advancements, the experts believe that the misuse may be due to a number of factors including increased access to technology, the desire for attention, and a lack of understanding of the consequences of such threats.

The email providers play a crucial role in the dissemination of such cyber threats. A focused dialogue between the state governments, cybersecurity experts, NGOs and email service providers could lead to more effective strategies to identify and block mass threat emails.

With the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a few experts, the law enforcement agencies could adopt strategies involving advanced filtering algorithms or enhanced monitoring of suspicious email patterns.