Three cases of suspected computer intrusions into the computers of two magistrates, including that of the Turin prosecutor Giovanni Bombardieri. Alleged unauthorized access through the now well-known ECM system, installed on the devices of the Ministry of Justice and of which Via Arenula announced the decommissioning in recent days, after it had ended up at the center of controversy due to a journalistic investigation by Report.
The Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office directed by Marcello Viola is investigating the three episodes in which the Turin judicial district is considered “aggrieved persons”. According to its jurisdiction, Marcello Viola, in a file opened a few months ago by prosecutors Enrico Pavone and Francesca Celle and following a complaint from the Ministry itself, today gave an account of having carried out last March, in agreement with the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor Giovanni Melillo, a series of house and computer searches. Investigative investigations, as the prosecutors write, which “were necessary because, from the first findings, it emerged that the IT intrusions occurred through the forcing of the system made possible by the possession of administrator credentials”. The suspects, in fact, are three technicians of the “agreed” company for maintenance services and who had the “availability of these credentials by virtue of IT assistance contracts stipulated by the Ministry with third-party companies”.
The Prosecutor’s Office, therefore, clarified that the elements collected so far in the investigations of the Postal Police do not lead to the hypothesis of “any intrusion” by officials in Via Arenula. As regards the first case that had already come to light in recent months, it would have been a “test” on the PC of a investigating judge from Alessandria, Aldo Tirone, through a technician. And the prosecutors are checking whether even in the others, those who targeted Bombardieri’s PC, there was evidence of vulnerability of the system or actual entrances to “spy” on personal computers which obviously contain sensitive data and information covered by investigative secrecy. One of the two facts that see the head of the Turin Prosecutor’s Office as a “victim” was discussed in the last episode of Sigfrido Ranucci’s program, in which the now former (fired) technician, Stefano, of the company that carried out the maintenance was interviewed – as had already happened previously in the Tirone affair. He would be accused of having “hacked” the PC and then sending an email in Bombardieri’s name. However, on the show the suspect gave another version: «The prosecutor had asked for a color printer to be installed on his computer, complete with an intervention ticket. Which I carry out as per practice. At the end of the installation – he continued – this email was sent. Never entered his inbox. A sensational misunderstanding, I hope the prosecutor is made aware of it.” From what we know, it was the prosecutor himself who noticed the violations on his PC and reported them. And while “forensic analyzes on the devices seized” in the searches two months ago are still “in progress”, the broader checks at national level are coordinated by the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate. The focus is on the flaws in the software adopted in 2019 by the Ministry and installed on approximately 40 thousand computers of magistrates and chancellors to remotely carry out updates and maintenance of the devices. With a program that would have allowed, through the availability of access passwords, to enter without the users they noticed it and without, in practice, leaving a trace. At the moment, from what was reported in the Prosecutor’s Office in Milan, there were no magistrates “affected” in the Milan district and nor, it seems, in other judicial districts.