Hoax email sent to Engineering School

A fake department-wide email sent to students and faculty in the School of Engineering and Applied Science Monday morning announced that classes before noon in the Moore Building were canceled due to an electrical failure.

The email, which was falsely signed by associate director for Student Affairs and Advising Sonya Gwak and sent at about 8:15 a.m., said the problem was caused by an air conditioning duct which had burst.

The Computing and Educational Technology Services is conducting an investigation with the Penn Police Department to determine who sent the email, director of CETS Helen Anderson said.

Although “there is no evidence either that any SEAS email accounts were penetrated or that any personal data was released,” Anderson said, “this is a serious offense, and we have increased security on the mailing server.”

When Gwak learned about the fake email, she sent out another department-wide email at about 10:15 a.m. to clarify the situation.

“It seems that my email has been hacked,” she wrote. “CETS is aware, and I am getting it fixed.”

Rahul Mangharam, an Engineering professor who teaches “Embedded Systems and Microcontroller Laboratory” in the Moore Building on Monday morning, said he had scheduled a midterm on the day the email was sent out.

“The email was quickly found to be a hoax, and we had the exam as scheduled,” Mangharam said.

Engineering junior Sriram Radhakrishnan, however, said the email was “authentic and plausible enough” that “for a good 30 minutes or so, everyone thought it was canceled.”

“When I first saw the email, I actually hoped that they would find another room outside of Moore, because I just wanted to get the exam out of the way,” Engineering and Wharton junior Zuri Michan said.

“Luckily, the professor emailed us and told us that it was a hoax,” Radhakrishnan added.

During the exam, another false email was sent to the class stating that the exam had been postponed to Wednesday.

“This one even had my email signature and came from my mail address,” Mangharam said. “This was found to be a hoax too as the whole class was doing the exam when the message was received.”

Engineering sophomore Nima Jelveh said the person who sent the school-wide email may not have hacked the Engineering School’s IT system. The email may have been sent from a “spoofing site” called Emkei’s Fake Mailer.

After receiving the email, many Engineering students disregarded it and proceeded to class anyway.

“My initial reaction was how ironic it was that our electrical engineering class was being canceled due to an electrical failure,” Michan said.

Mangharam believes the person who sent the email must be someone with inside information and perhaps even a student taking his course.

“Only because we had an exam today, it was probably someone in our class,” Michan added.

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