Minecraft Feud Results in Widespread School Bombing Hoaxes

A feud between rival Minecraft servers escalated to a bomb threat hoax that resulted in hundreds of schools in the UK being evacuated.

According to Sky News, around 24,000 threatening emails were sent out to various schools and colleges in the UK that threatened bombings throughout the country. Though police forces throughout the UK said that there were no credible threats included in the emails, around 400 schools were nonetheless evacuated as a precaution.

We have had a number of calls this morning about a bomb hoax at many of our region's schools. All of the schools have been spoken to and there is not believed to be any viable threats #ProudToProtect pic.twitter.com/iGafyMfAvx

— Northumbria Police (@northumbriapol) March 19, 2018

Sky News also reported that the emails were spoofed so that it would appear as though they were coming from a Minecraft server called VeltPvP, a player-versus-player server. The hoax apparently came from those associated with another Minecraft server who spoke to Sky News anonymously and accused those in charge of VeltPvP of engaging in harassment through illegal activities. One of the hoaxers told Sky News that "it's not the nicest thing" when asked if the hoaxer regretted scaring children and causing the schools to be evacuated before adding that the reactions from schools "showed failures on their part." The hoaxer also acknowledged that there was a chance he could be arrested for the false threats.

When asked about the feud between the VeltPvP and other unnamed rival Minecraft servers, the hoaxer accused those in charge of VeltPvP of engaging in DDoS attacks and other offensive tactics against rival servers. The hoaxer summed up the actions of VeltPvP by saying "what that network has done is horrible."

But VeltPvP's owners take a different stance on the issue. Velt's chief executive Carson Kallen told Sky News that the accusations were "completely false" and said that he hopes those responsible for the spoofed emails that led to the hoax is caught. Kallen continued to add that this isn't the first time that his group has been targeted while adding that he's been swatted multiple times.

Velt issued a statement via Twitter that referred to the hoaxers as "cyber criminals" and stressed that the organization had nothing to do with the bomb threats.

We have nothing to do with the bomb threats that were sent out to the 400+ UK schools.

We've been being harassed by a group of cyber criminals that are trying to harass us in anyway possible.

We're extremely sorry for anyone who had to deal with this, but just know it's fake.

— VeltPvP (@VeltPvP) March 19, 2018

No reports of any arrests or further actions taken against the hoaxers have been seen at this time.