PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Brown University says its email system was hacked over the weekend.
Some users reported receiving emails from a Brown “special events” email address with images and comments about the situation in Ukraine.
“These messages were the unfortunate result of unauthorized access to a bulk email service used by the University that enabled the names and email addresses of recipients to be extracted from the service. The University has changed the password for the compromised account and was able to prevent distribution of the unauthorized message to most email addresses in the account,” a message from the school read.
The university said it does not expect any other unauthorized messages to be sent.
There was no virus or software linked to the message, and no confidential information other than the names associated with the recipient’s email addresses were accessed.
“We encourage you simply to delete the original message(s) and any others you might receive with similar or questionable content,” the school’s message continued. “It’s relevant to note that the unauthorized sender of today’s emails created a link that would allow others to access the list of email addresses used to send today’s unauthorized emails. You may receive other spam messages from accounts pretending to be Brown senders, or from other email addresses.”
According to Brown, they have taken all immediate steps possible and will continue to monitor the situation.
