University College London has been forced to close down its email service after thousands of students were reportedly signed up to the world’s biggest porn site – PornHub – after a system hack.
The issue was sparked after the account of UCL’s president Michael Arthur sent out a message to an “all students” address – nearly 30,000 people – containing the single word “bello”.
Hundreds of students responded to the message – including one who replied: “Bello? Is it me you’re looking for?” in a reference to the Lionel Richie hit “Hello” – which in turn sparked a mass bombardment of spam emails in students’ inboxes. Email notifications included subscriptions and group lists for Pornhub, One Direction and UKIP.
Within hours “#bellogate” was top of the UK trends on Twitter – ahead of the hashtag used by Great British Bake Off fans during the show’s final – forcing UCL had to create new web tools so students could delete spam emails.
Mike Cope, director of UCL’s information services division said in a statment: “I am sorry to inform you that, multiple emails (perhaps up to 1,000) have been received by students on an all-student email list. This list has now been closed down as of 9.30 this morning.
“UCL ISD are investigating this problem as a matter of urgency and are attempting to ensure that all access to the affected list is shut down for the time being.”
Hannah Sketchley, democracy and communications officer at the UCL Union, said: “I would say that obviously, on the face of it, it is quite funny. We are all, including myself, riffing off the word bello. But it is a serious issue that UCL has to sort out, especially if it’s spreading to other universities.”
