UPenn GSE Account Hacked, Offensive Emails Sent

On Friday a vulgar, clearly fraudulent mass email appearing to come from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education account — with the subject “We got hacked (Action Required)” — called the university “dogshit elitist,” used slurs, urged recipients to stop giving money, accused Penn of breaking FERPA and the SFFA ruling, and threatened to leak data. Copies of the message were widely shared on social media and were reported as sent to students, faculty, alumni, parents and other members of the Penn community. Penn confirmed the message stemmed from a security breach, called the content “highly offensive” and “obviously a fake,” and said the Office of Information Security and its Incident Response team are investigating. The university posted alerts advising recipients to delete suspicious GSE emails and to contact local IT only if they receive new or different concerning messages. News outlets reported the investigation was ongoing and the university had not yet reported fully regaining control of the affected account.