PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Current and former students at the University of Pennsylvania received an alarming, fraudulent email on Friday.
Addressed to the Penn community, the email reads:
“The University of Pennsylvania is a dog**** elitist institution full of woke r******. We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic. We hire and admit m***** because we love legacies, donors and unqualified affirmative action admits. We love breaking federal laws like FERPA (all your data will be leaked) and Supreme Court rulings like SFFA. Please stop giving us money. Warm regards, The University of Pennsylvania.”
A Penn spokesperson told KYW Newsradio the email is “obviously a fake,” and “nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE (Graduate School of Education)."
An alert on the university’s website states that the fraudulent email appears to have come from a Penn GSE account, with the subject: “We got hacked (Action Required),” or something similar.
The university says its Office of Information Security is aware of the situation, and the school's Incident Response team is actively addressing it.
The university says if you receive an email that appears to have come from Penn GSE and seems suspicious, you do not need to report it. Just disregard or delete it. However, if you receive any type of new or different messages that raise concern, contact your local IT support provider (LSP).