The University of Pennsylvania is investigating a cybersecurity incident after unknown hackers gained access to internal email accounts and sent thousands of misleading messages to students, alumni, and staff on Friday morning. The fraudulent emails, which appeared to come from the university’s Graduate School of Education (GSE), contained inflammatory and false statements aimed at discrediting the institution.
The messages, distributed through multiple legitimate @upenn.edu accounts, mocked the university’s data protection standards and included offensive remarks about its internal policies. Some messages falsely claimed the university violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and threatened to release private student data. Several recipients reported receiving the same message multiple times from different Penn-affiliated senders.
In a statement to media outlets, Penn spokesperson Ron Ozio confirmed that the university’s incident response team is actively handling the situation. He described the email as “fraudulent,” adding that the content “does not reflect the mission or actions of Penn or Penn GSE.” The university emphasized that it is coordinating with cybersecurity specialists to contain the breach and determine the extent of access obtained by the attackers.
Preliminary findings suggest the threat actors may have compromised university email accounts, likely through credential theft or phishing, and used them to send t
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