By BECKY RUTHERFORD
Los Alamos
For the Los Alamos Daily Post

Nine state capitol buildings across the US were placed under evacuation orders Wednesday due to emailed bomb threats, according to officials.

Government buildings in Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan Mississippi and Montana were sent bomb threats via email to their offices of secretaries of states and legislative officials.

The FBI has been working with state, local and federal officials to gather and share information.

The agency said they are aware of numerous hoax bomb threats at state capitol buildings, but are unaware of any “specific and credible threat”. Even hoax threats are taken very seriously by the FBI.

State officials have confirmed the threats and issued statements.

Scott Driscoll of the Connecticut state capitol police told staff and legislators: “Earlier this morning, the Connecticut State Capitol Police received complaints from numerous employees about a suspicious email that was received. The email, which apparently was sent to numerous states, claimed to have placed multiple explosives in the Capitol Building.”

Michigan and Kentucky capitol buildings remain closed for the day, other states, like Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi and Montana have reopened their capitols since no explosives were found, local authorities said.

Bomb threat hoaxes via email are certainly not new and have been around for years. In 2018 Bitcoin themed bomb threats spammed schools and businesses across the world. The emails demanded a $20,000 bitcoin payment in exchange for not detonating the bombs. It is unknown at this time if this week’s bomb threat campaign demanded any ransom. Even though these are generally not credible threats, simply meant to distract and cause chaos, officials must still respond as if it were a credible threat.

If you receive an emailed bomb threat at work, treat it as a credible threat and follow procedures specified by your employer. It might seem ridiculous, but it’s still a threat and needs to be reported to authorities for proper investigation and response.

Threats like these usually come in waves, so I wouldn’t be shocked if we see more reports of this in the coming days/weeks. These bomb threat email hoaxes are the perfect way to cause chaos, as the sender knows the receiver will have to involve law enforcement, and disrupt operations while dealing with the threat. Law enforcement continues to investigate these events.

Editor’s note: Rebecca Rutherford works in information technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory.