The University of Pennsylvania is investigating an apparent online security breach Friday after emails from accounts linked to the Ivy League institution’s Graduate School of Education were sent around to students, alumni, faculty, parents and individuals outside the university community.
“A fraudulent email has been circulated that appears to come from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education,” a Penn spokesperson responded to an inquiry from Billy Penn. “This is obviously a fake, and nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE. The University’s Office of Information Security is aware of the situation, and our Incident Response team is actively addressing it.”
The crudely-worded emails, addressed to the “Penn community,” disparaged the university, its hiring and admission practices, and even made accusations of Penn breaking federal laws.
“Please stop giving us money,” the email read, before closing with “warm regards.”
“All of the emails are incredibly offensive and in no way reflective of Penn or Penn GSE’s mission or values,” a message from Penn’s university notification system read. “We sincerely apologize for the harm this has caused and is causing. Over and above the inconvenience of getting your inboxes spammed, these emails are hurtful and upsetting.”
An email, addressed to the staff of Penn’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design from an account tied to a senior systems administrator, clarified that there was no malicious links or malware in the unsanctioned email, and the only action necessary was to delete the email, unless the receiver replied to the message or clicked a suspicious link.
Messages from the IT services with Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication, Penn Medicine Academic Computing Services and the School of Nursing have also acknowledged the security breach, the Daily Pennsylvanian has reported.