Thousands of UCL students signed up to porn websites and One Direction fan club in mass email leak

Students were signed up to a One Direction fan club Credit: PA

Around 26,000 students at University College London have been signed up to porn websites, One Direction fan clubs and UKIP amongst others.

The hack is being called #bellogate and is trending on twitter, after an email simply saying ‘bello!’ was sent from provost@ucl.ac.uk – the university’s president Professor Michael Arthur.

The email string all-students@ucl.ac.uk was used filling student's inboxes with messages from sites included PornHub, GayPornTalent, YouPorn, Ukip, One Direction Fan Club, OKCupid, and dating service Shaadi.com.

The problem was made worse as confused students replied to the emails which were then also send around those hacked.

The university has issued a statement confirming that no student bank details have been compromised and that the email list has been closed down.