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Canvas Hacked: Universities Face Outages Amid Data Breach Threat
8 May
Summary
- Canvas, a learning platform, experienced outages due to a reported hack.
- The hacking group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach.
- Universities were warned of potential data release if demands are not met.
Canvas, a popular learning management system, has been subjected to a cyberattack, resulting in significant outages affecting numerous universities. The incident began to be reported on Thursday afternoon, with user reports indicating a downward trend after a few hours.
The hacking collective known as ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for breaching Instructure, the company behind Canvas. This group is infamous for orchestrating large-scale data breaches.
Following the breach, ShinyHunters issued a warning to universities on May 7, stating that any institution wishing to prevent the public release of its data must contact them before May 12.
Instructure acknowledged an ongoing investigation into issues affecting user access, particularly concerning Student ePortfolios, and later confirmed that Canvas, Canvas Beta, and Canvas Test were unavailable. The full extent of the data compromise and the specific impact on educational institutions are still under investigation.
