As soon as that info was taken, the hacker sent an email to quite a few members of the Penn group. It had the topic line “We received hacked (Motion Required),” and it known as the college “a dogshit elitist establishment filled with woke retards.” It went on to assert that the college is “utterly unmeritocratic” and that “we rent and admit morons as a result of we love legacies, donors, and unqualified affirmative motion admits.”
Sounds political! However the hacker contacted the positioning Bleeping Computer and mentioned that the actual objective was Penn's “huge, splendidly rich donor database” and that, “whereas we're probably not politically motivated, we've no love for these nepobaby-serving establishments.” (Among the many donors? Elon Musk, who has endowed the Elon Musk Public Lecture at Penn.)
That “denial” of political motivations additionally sounds fairly political, and there's precedent for such actions in opposition to academic establishments. Columbia College, as an example, was hacked this summer by a “extremely refined ‘hacktivist' who had gained entry to personal pupil information in an try and additional a political agenda,” in keeping with the Related Press.
It's all the time arduous to understand how a lot of this “hactivist” exercise is actually motivated non-public actors, nevertheless, versus nation-states disguising their very own makes an attempt to steal knowledge and to create political disruption.
In response, Penn has known as within the FBI and the non-public firm CrowdStrike, whereas a Penn alumnus has already sued the school for negligence. Penn employees can stay up for “further necessary trainings” to stop comparable breaches sooner or later.
