Canvas hack strands students during finals week as UC and CSU systems monitor breach

"Students attempting to access grades, study materials and quizzes were met instead with a message from a hacker on Thursday, as a widespread breach hit universities and high schools across the country, including the University of California and California State University systems."

"Universities and school systems across the country, from the University of Pennsylvania to Georgetown University to the the University of Oklahoma, reported a ransom note on the homepage of their schools' Canvas sites. UC Berkeley sent a community-wide email instructing its students not to access Canvas until further notice: "We recognize this significant disruption affects teaching and learning across campus. Students should await instructions from their instructors regarding temporary arrangements for submitting assignments and accessing course materials.""

"Half of all college and university students in North America use Canvas or Canvas Career, parent company Instructure claims on its website, with more than 8,000 institutions as customers. Many of those students are in the middle of a busy spring finals week."

"Instructure said on its website that Canvas was "in maintenance mode" late Thu. "ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again)," read a warning on a University of Washington student's account around noon PT, which was seen by CNN. "Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us and did some 'security patches.'""

A widespread breach disrupted access to grades, study materials, and quizzes for students at universities and high schools across the country. The attack targeted Canvas, a cloud-based classroom platform used by many institutions, including systems in California. Multiple schools reported ransom notes displayed on Canvas homepages, and UC Berkeley advised students not to access Canvas until further notice. Instructure, the company behind Canvas, worked to restore service while Canvas was placed in maintenance mode. The incident occurred during spring finals week, affecting teaching and learning. ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attacks and demanded ransoms to prevent further data leaks.

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