A hacker claims to have stolen data from the University of Pennsylvania containing information on roughly 1.2 million donors, alumni, and students, including sensitive demographic and financial details. The university has confirmed it is investigating the incident and has notified federal authorities.
According to the attacker, access was gained through a compromised PennKey single sign-on (SSO) account, which enabled lateral movement into systems across the university's digital ecosystem, including Salesforce Marketing Cloud, SAP Business Intelligence, Qlik analytics, Box, and SharePoint. The same access was reportedly used to send offensive bulk emails to more than 700,000 recipients via the university's marketing platform (see image below).
Screenshots shared by the hacker and reviewed by BleepingComputer show spreadsheets containing names, birthdates, addresses, donation history, estimated net worth, and information about religion, race, and sexual orientation. While the authenticity of all materials is still being verified, the breadth of data claimed makes this one of the largest known university-related breaches of the year.
The alleged breach highlights how legitimate enterprise systems can be repurposed as attack infrastructure when identity controls fail. The university's Salesforce Marketing Cloud instance, normally used for alumni and donor communications, was reportedly leveraged to distribute the offensive emails and exfiltrate stored donor data.
"Beyond humiliation—UPenn has previously claimed to have mature security practices—there is an issue of identity and trust: both large-scale weaponized outreach and data theft were made possible via compromised SSO and marketing platform access," said Noelle Murata, Sr. Security Engineer at Xcape, Inc.
Murata added that marketing and CRM environments are often overlooked during security audits despite their deep integration with identity and analytics systems.
"Other universities should alert donors with explicit instructions on fraud monitoring and phishing defenses, confirm Marketing Cloud keys and suppression lists, lock down OAuth/connected apps, and cycle credentials and tokens right away," she said.
The claimed entry point—a single stolen PennKey credential—highlights the risk concentration associated with unified access systems. With SSO, one login can bridge multiple platforms across administrative and academic departments.
"Additionally, requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) where possible and restricting access to sensitive systems will provide further user account protections," Murata continued. "By transforming a single leaked credential into a high-value data theft and harassment campaign, this hack demonstrates that the identity layer, the SSO account, remains the weakest link. Your donor database becomes the open door when your identity solution becomes the skeleton key. Lock down identification first, or everything else falls after."
The university has not publicly detailed how the credential was compromised, though the attacker described the method as "simple." Whether through phishing, password reuse, or infostealer malware, the outcome reflects how identity compromise can bypass even mature perimeter defenses.
Unlike a typical breach of student records, this incident appears to target development and advancement systems—repositories that contain both personal and wealth-related data. These donor databases often contain information on alumni giving capacity, philanthropic interests, and inferred demographic attributes, all of which can be monetized or exploited in social engineering campaigns.
If confirmed, the exposure of high-net-worth donors and personal demographic data could have lasting reputational and financial impacts for the institution. Experts note that data of this nature is valuable not just for financial fraud but also for ideological targeting and identity theft.
The attacker's claim of simultaneous access to Salesforce, SAP BI, and internal collaboration platforms suggests weak segmentation and limited identity isolation between systems. Once authenticated through SSO, the intruder could reportedly pivot across marketing, analytics, and data-storage environments—each belonging to different business units within the university.
This type of cross-domain access complicates incident response, as it spans IT, marketing, and vendor-managed cloud platforms. Universities, like many enterprises, often distribute security ownership across departments, leaving certain integrations unmonitored.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud and other SaaS applications in use at the university may have expanded the potential blast radius of the compromise. Cloud marketing and analytics tools rely on connected apps and API keys, which can persist even after credentials are changed.
As Murata noted, institutions should review OAuth permissions, enforce token expiration, and ensure that third-party connectors adhere to least-privilege principles. Vendor platforms holding personal or donor data require the same scrutiny and MFA enforcement as critical infrastructure.
The University of Pennsylvania confirmed to BleepingComputer that it is investigating the incident and has referred the matter to the FBI. As of this writing, the university has not confirmed the scale of the breach or whether donor and alumni data were exfiltrated.
No ransomware or extortion claims have been made, and the hacker has not yet released the full dataset publicly. However, given the sensitive nature of the information involved, observers expect targeted phishing and fraud attempts against donors to follow.
This developing story serves as a reminder that identity systems and third-party integrations remain critical risk junctions for complex organizations. Universities, in particular, balance open collaboration with custodianship of deeply personal data—a combination that continues to draw attention from both criminal and ideological attackers.
While the investigation continues, the University of Pennsylvania breach stands as a case study in how a single compromised credential can unravel trust across an institution's most visible and valued relationships.
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