Class Action Lawsuit Claims UPenn Email Accounts Were Hacked After Vulgar Email Blast

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action lawsuit claims that the University of Pennsylvania failed to properly protect the personal information of students, alumni, faculty and others after a hacker sent an expletive-laden email blast on October 31, 2025.

Get class action lawsuit and class action settlement news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter.

According to the 51-page data breach lawsuit, several “@upenn.edu” email accounts associated with the Philadelphia-based university’s Graduate School of Education received cryptic emails on October 31 that stated that “all your data will be leaked,” along with other criticisms of the school. Per the case, the majority of these emails came from different senders with official University of Pennsylvania email addresses.

Shortly after the email blast went out, the case says, a UPenn spokesperson told The Daily Pennsylvanian that “that we are actively and quickly investigating and taking immediate steps to stop these emails from being sent… Our IT team at Penn GSE and the University’s IT team and Crisis Response Teams are working as quickly as they can.”

Related Reading: University of Pennsylvania Data Breach Lawsuit Investigation

Per the lawsuit, the unauthorized third-party that accessed several UPenn email accounts allegedly breached private, personally identifiable information (PII), including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and demographic details.

The lawsuit argues that the University’s negligence is to blame for the hacker’s ability to access “everything they need to commit identity theft and wreak havoc on the financial and personal lives of thousands of individuals.” Further, the case contends that UPenn violated the Federal Trade Commission Act by failing to implement reasonable measures to protect private information in line with industry privacy guidelines and standards.

The plaintiff, an Illinois resident, is a UPenn alum who also received the threatening email stemming from the data breach. The plaintiff’s information, along with that of thousands of other students, alumni, UPenn donors and staff, is obtained and stored by UPenn “as part of its business” as a university, the suit says.

The UPenn data breach class action lawsuit looks to cover all individuals whose personally identifiable information was compromised during the University of Pennsylvania data breach, including all those who were sent a notice letter after the incident occurred.

Check out ClassAction.org’s free legal resources to learn how to start a class action lawsuit.