ANU investigates vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell LinkedIn hack after ‘highly offensive, objectionable’ posts liked
A spokesman for the ANU said Genevieve Bell’s LinkedIn account was ‘compromised’ after certain posts that she had ‘never seen’ were liked.
The Australian National University will investigate a potential hacking of its Vice-Chancellor’s LinkedIn account after it was alerted to “highly offensive” liked posts including a negative post about Chancellor Julie Bishop.
The “compromised” LinkedIn account of Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell, with more than 18,000 followers, liked a post about Ms Bishop “directly aiding a CCP backed dictator”, odd “never seen” posts about aid in Palestine, and further conspiracy theory posts.
A spokesman for the ANU said the matter had been referred to the federal government’s cyber security agency, the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
“Yesterday morning, the University was made aware that the LinkedIn account of our Vice-Chancellor, Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell, had been compromised,” the spokesman said.
“The LinkedIn account had ‘liked’ certain posts that the VC had never seen. Some of the liked content was highly offensive and objectionable to the VC and also inconsistent with the values set by the Council for ANU.
“We take this type of behaviour seriously and an investigation is under way. The matter is being referred to authorities.”
On Thursday, the ‘reactions’ on Professor Bell’s LinkedIn page were not visible.
A Saturday Paper senior reporter shared a number of the liked posts to social media platform Bluesky on Wednesday afternoon after he alerted the university to the “strange” content.
He said they included conspiracy theories about former US Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci, while sharing a number of posts Professor Bell’s account had liked including a post from a Melbourne doctor about “what’s really going on” with the “decades-old money machine – the UN and UNRWA’s Palestinian aid industry” and another about “UN Special Envoy Julie Bishop’s Complicity in Genocide”.
The posts were reportedly embedded within normal posts about the university and the School of Cybernetics.
It comes as the ANU on Thursday announced 37 further job cuts in its restructure of Information Technology Services, the Information Security Office, and the Planning and Service Performance Division.
“This represents a reduction of about 9-14 per cent in headcount for each of those areas. These numbers are not representative of the number of affected staff – in some instances, reductions are found in vacant roles.
“After years of operating deficits, the Vice-Chancellor has been clear that we need to achieve a break-even result in 2026, and this involves a significant reduction in our cost base of $250m, including $100m of salary costs,” its statement began.
The National Tertiary Education Union has estimated that staffing levels had been reduced by 635 full-time since March 31, 2024
“In our most recent update to our community, we let people know we are over halfway towards our salary savings target, but there’s still work to do,” the statement said.
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