Cyber Incident Victim: Iowa State University
Date:
Jun 2020
Location:
United States of America
Summary
A racist email spam campaign targeted Iowa State University affiliates, impersonating Equity Prime Mortgage and containing white supremacist rhetoric including lynching references. The institution's IT services intercepted 70% of messages before delivery, blocking the sender, though some faculty and student accounts received the hate-filled content. University leadership condemned the attack's racist intent and acknowledged its distressing impact, particularly on Black community members. Similar racially charged emails were reported at Harvard and Stanford Universities under the same fraudulent sender guise. The incident prompted swift technical mitigation and public denouncement of the messages' violent ideology.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On or around June 21, 2020, Iowa State University experienced a racially motivated cyberattack targeting university-affiliated email accounts. The attack involved a spam campaign impersonating Equity Prime Mortgage, an Atlanta-based mortgage lending company. Emails contained explicit references to white supremacy and lynching, with recipients reporting receipt of messages around Sunday afternoon according to ISU Chief of Police Michael Newton. The campaign primarily targeted faculty email accounts, though some student accounts also received messages. University officials characterized the content as containing "horrid, blatantly racist comments" that differed significantly from typical spam campaigns the institution had previously encountered.
Iowa State University's Information Technology Services Department detected and intercepted the messages rapidly, preventing delivery to 70% of intended recipients by removing unopened emails and blocking the malicious sender. In response to the incident, university leadership issued a public letter condemning the "repugnant hate-filled message" and acknowledging the particular distress caused to Black students and staff. The university confirmed similar racially-charged email campaigns had targeted Harvard University and Stanford University using the same Equity Prime Mortgage impersonation tactic. This attack occurred against the backdrop of national attention on Equity Prime Mortgage, which had recently terminated an employee connected to a police officer involved in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. No technical details regarding attack vectors or sender infrastructure were disclosed by university officials.