PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The University of Pennsylvania said the FBI is now involved in the investigation of a cybersecurity breach last week.
In a statement, the university said it is “working with law enforcement as well as other third-party technical resources to address this as rapidly as possible.”
The security breach came to light on Oct. 31 when a profane, inflammatory email was sent from Penn’s Graduate School of Education.
A hacker has taken credit for the breach. In an interview with the website Bleeping Computer, they claim that their access reached deeper into Penn’s systems, including donors’ and students’ personal information. To prove the cyberattack, they published nearly two gigabytes of information allegedly selected from those files.
The hacker said their target was the university’s donor database.
KYW Newsradio was unable to independently verify the published files. The university has not commented on the individual documents either.
In a statement issued on Monday, Penn added, “We continue to investigate the breach of data of select information systems. We understand and share our community’s concerns and have reported this to the FBI.”