U. of Pennsylvania alumni sue over cyber breach
Three former students at the University of Pennsylvania are suing the institution, claiming it failed to protect their sensitive personal information, WPHL reported on Thursday.
The suit stems from an incident last month in which vulgar emails were sent from Penn’s Graduate School of Education.
“We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic,” the email read. “We hire and admit morons because we love legacies, donors, and unqualified affirmative action admits.”
On Tuesday, the university said it was investigating the incident “around the clock.”
“Penn has notified the FBI and continues to work with law enforcement,” a statement from university leaders read. “We are investigating the incident with the assistance of third-party cybersecurity professionals, including CrowdStrike, an industry leader in cybersecurity.”
One of the actors purportedly responsible for the attack told Bleeping Computer that the operation yielded data for roughly 1.2 million students, alumni and donors. The data publication reported that the data included names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, estimated net worths, donation histories and demographic details, such as religion, race and sexual orientation.
