EDITORS' CORNER
Key Takeaways
- The University of Pennsylvania is investigating fraudulent emails appearing to be from the Graduate School of Education.
- The emails accused the university of poor security practices, 'unmeritocratic' admissions, and breaking federal laws, while also demanding a cease in financial donations.
- Penn's administration condemned the emails as offensive, stated that their IT teams are addressing the situation, and noted that similar emails have reached individuals outside of the university.
- The investigation revealed that the graduate school's account was not hacked, but rather that malicious actors accessed an uncontrolled email list to send the messages.
The University of Pennsylvania is investigating a series of fraudulent emails criticizing the university’s “woke” faculty and calling its students “morons.”
The emails purported to come from the university’s Graduate School of Education and were sent to students, alumni, faculty and other affiliates Friday, according to Fox News.
“The University of Pennsylvania is a dogshit institution full of woke retards,” the email read in part.
“We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic. We hire and admit morons because we love legacies, donors and unqualified affirmative action admits,” it stated.
The email also accused the school of violating federal laws such as FERPA and leaking student data.
It concluded, “Please stop giving us money.”
Some students said they received the message up to six times “from multiple University-affiliated email addresses,” The New York Post reported.
The university addressed the incident in a post on Facebook, stating, “Fraudulent emails are currently being circulated that appear to come from a Penn Graduate School of Education account with the subject ‘We got hacked (Action Required)’ or similar.”
The university called the emails “incredibly offensive” and apologized for any harm they caused.
“The University’s Office of Information Security is aware of the situation, and our Incident Response team is actively addressing it,” the school stated.
“Over and above the inconvenience of getting your inboxes spammed, these emails are hurtful and upsetting,” it stated.
Further, in a message to the graduate school community, a university spokesperson stated the school’s “IT team at Penn GSE and the University’s IT team and Crisis Response Teams are working as quickly as they can,” according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Elizabeth Cooper, the school’s IT help desk manager, also addressed the “offensive emails” in a message to Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication.
“These emails are being received by individuals outside of UPenn as well,” she stated.
“It appears that some email list, which is beyond our control, was accessed by malicious individuals who then sent out these messages,” Cooper stated.
She added that the graduate school’s account was not hacked.
“At this time, there is nothing for us to do, but we wanted to keep you informed,” Cooper told the school.
Similarly, the School of Nursing’s IT department told students, “the security team is actively working to block and prevent any further messages from being sent.”
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