"The widely used digital learning platform Canvas was put into "maintenance mode" on Thursday after its maker, the education tech giant Instructure, suffered a data breach and faced an extortion attempt by attackers using the recognizable moniker "ShinyHunters." Though the hackers have been advertising the breach and attempting to extract a ransom payment from Instructure since May 1, the situation took on additional immediacy for regular people across the US and beyond on Thursday because the Canvas downtime caused chaos at schools, including those in the midst of finals and end-of-year assignments."
"Universities like Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and Georgetown sent alerts to students about the situation in recent days; other institutions, including school districts in at least a dozen states, also appear to have been affected. In a list published by the hackers behind the attack on their ransom-focused dark web site, they claim the breach affected more than 8,800 schools. The exact scale and reach of the breach is currently unclear, though. And the fact that Canvas was down throughout Thursday afternoon and evening further complicated the picture."
"In a running incident update log that began on May 1, Steve Proud, Instructure's chief information security officer, said that the company had "recently experienced a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor." He added on May 2 that "the information involved" for "users at affected institutions" included names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged by users on the platform."
Canvas was moved to maintenance mode after Instructure suffered a data breach and faced an extortion attempt. Attackers using the name ShinyHunters had advertised the breach and sought ransom payments since May 1. Canvas downtime caused major disruption for schools, including during finals and end-of-year assignments, with universities and school districts sending alerts across multiple states. The attackers claimed the breach affected more than 8,800 schools, though the full scope remained unclear. Instructure’s incident updates said the incident involved names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged by users at affected institutions. The incident was later marked resolved, with further details not fully shown in the provided text.
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