Canvas hack – A hack of Canvas, the cloud learning platform used by thousands of U.S. schools, disrupted access to grades and class materials during spring finals week after the outage began May 7. Multiple universities, including the University of Michigan, Harvard Univers
When finals week arrived on May 7, students at multiple universities found the same thing missing: access to Canvas, the platform where grades and course materials live.
Across the United States. colleges and universities alerted students and staff that Canvas—built and maintained by Instructure—was reporting a security incident and was experiencing an outage. For many, it wasn’t an abstract technology problem. It landed in the middle of tests, coursework, and assignments scheduled to be completed through the system.
In a message sent to the University of Michigan community on May 7. the school said Instructure reported a security incident affecting other institutions that use Canvas. not just the university itself. The university said it was temporarily removing access “out of an abundance of caution” while its Information and Technology Services team investigated and worked to protect university systems and data. It told users who were logged into Canvas to log out immediately.
At Harvard University, students were also blocked. The university reported the Canvas platform was unavailable due to a cyber incident and said it was impacting “many Instructure customers worldwide.”
Pennsylvania State University told its community that the school and “many other universities” were unable to access Canvas. It said it does not “expect resolution to occur within the next 24 hours — and it could stretch beyond. ” adding that tests and other assignments due to be completed in Canvas would not be available.
By late May 7. Instructure said on its status page that Canvas was “now available for most users.” Earlier in the incident. the company said Canvas and related sites had been placed “in maintenance mode” and that it was “investigating an issue where some users are having difficulties logging into Student ePortfolios.”.
Canvas hack Instructure ShinyHunters cybersecurity colleges finals week University of Michigan Harvard Pennsylvania State University ransomware
So like finals got ruined cuz hackers. Wild.
My cousin said it was ransomware but the article says security incident? Same thing though. Either way, why are schools trusting one company for grades, like cmon.
Wait, they told everyone to log out immediately like that helps? If the platform is down it’s not like logging out fixes grades being missing lol. This sounds like Instructure just panicked.
This is gonna be the thing that makes me think colleges should go back to paper tests. Also I saw somewhere “ShinyHunters” in the keywords so I’m guessing that was the hack group, like it’s always them with everything. If it was available for most users by late May 7, then why were students still blocked during finals?? Seems unfair and messy.