UC Davis And Other Universities At Center Of Racist Cyber-Attack Email, FBI Now Investigating

DAVIS(CBS13) — UC Davis is one of at least six universities including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Michigan and Iowa State on the receiving end of a racist cyberattack email.

Thousands of email accounts were recently sent a message which reads in part, "Equity Prime is a lender for whites only. That's how we have such low rates."

The email even went as far as referencing lynching.

"I don't think it's not clear at this point what the whole point of it is, if it's just to be hateful, if there is an attempt to attack our service through it," said Andy Fell, a spokesman with UC Davis.

Fell says the sender appears to have also been hacked.

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"I think this is sort of the environment we live in now that we have to keep our guard up about cyber-attacks," he said.

Senior Sean Hua says the email is troubling and doesn't understand why it was sent to his university and others.

"I mean like it's always there it just got more brought out recently. I don't know if there is anything we can do to help it," he said.

UC Davis says staff does go through cybersecurity training. The university is actively working with the FBI to see if they can provide any information that can lead to why the university was involved in the cyberattack.

The community was advised to not open the email and delete it.