UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Studies have shown that people are more likely to be hostile, menacing and aggressive online than they are in their face-to-face communications. Due to the anonymity of the Internet, their identities are concealed, giving them the freedom to behave negatively.
Hostile messages sent through electronic mail are commonly called “hate mail.” These types of messages can contain threats, epithets, disparaging comments and other abusive language intended to make the recipient feel frightened, upset and isolated. Hate email is a form of harassment that might also include malicious attachments and unpleasant images or videos, and it is unsolicited and unwanted.
At Penn State, when someone reports being the recipient of hate email, University Police and Public Safety, as well as IT personnel, attempt to identify the sender — although the likelihood of being able to do so is limited. Senders may be bots — computer programs that operate as an agent for an individual or other program — or individuals who intentionally avoid providing personally identifiable information by using accounts specifically created for these kinds of attacks.
While Penn State’s Cybersecurity Team works to keep University data and systems secure from threats and intrusions that could compromise the network, they do not read or view the text of email messages, scan emails for “hate” words, or censor the body of email messages.
If you receive an email you perceive to be threatening, you should report it to University Police and Public Safety and save the email in a separate file as evidence. Do not click on links or view videos as they may contain viruses that can infect your system with malware or other malicious code. As part of their evaluation and investigation, University Police may contact Penn State’s Information Security department to recover log data derived from the email message (e.g., From, To, Subject, IP Address, Date, Time, Path followed into Penn State) in their attempt to track down the sender.
If you are a victim of harassing or abusive email messages, you may want to block the sender from sending any new email messages from that email address.
To block a sender through your Penn State Office 365 Outlook application:
- Log into office365.psu.edu.
- Click on your Outlook app icon.
- Right-click on the email from the sender you want to block.
- Select Block > Block sender.
- Click OK. The message will be deleted and all future messages from that email address will be moved to the Junk email folder.
Penn State’s email system has a built-in spam filter that automatically moves suspected junk emails to the Junk email folder. For more information about filtering junk email, see Office 365: Overview of Junk, Spam, Allowing and Blocking Emails on the IT Portal’s Knowledge Base.
Detailed instructions for blocking a sender in Outlook as well as other information about protecting your devices, data and Penn State account from cyberattacks is available on the University’s Information Security website.
If you are a victim of hate mail and experiencing feelings of isolation and fear, you can talk to a Health Advocate available through the Employee Assistance Program (for staff) or Counseling and Psychological Services (for students) to deal with the psychological implications of the harassment. Other avenues for reporting potential issues or concerns about something that might not be consistent with the Penn State Values are available on the Office of Ethics and Compliance website.