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Canvas Hit by Cyberattack During Finals Week

Instructure says the breach exposed names, emails, student IDs plus private messages.

Overview

  • Canvas pages showed ransom notes Thursday, and Instructure put the learning platform into maintenance as students and staff were locked out.
  • Instructure disclosed additional unauthorized changes on May 7 and said it is restoring access after cutting off the attacker’s routes and starting a forensic review.
  • ShinyHunters claimed roughly 3.65 TB of data tied to about 9,000 schools with a May 12 deadline for contact to avoid a public release.
  • The company says exposed data include names, email addresses, student ID numbers plus private Canvas messages, with no evidence of leaked passwords or financial or government IDs.
  • Universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Penn and Georgetown reported disruptions, and Spain’s UOC delayed coursework and alerted Catalan cyber and data regulators.