California colleges went big on online learning tools. Then came the cyberattack

"The online platform manages exams, course notes, lecture videos and grades. The attack has affected schools and colleges across the nation. The UC Riverside public policy students were among the likely hundreds of thousands in California who lost access to the all-important academic software Canvas when it was brought down by a hacker group Thursday afternoon. Losing Canvas meant losing assignments, tests, and required reading material along with a way to communicate with instructors."

"This is a very crucial time for students to be able to access their coursework. So I definitely do think that professors should reach out, Mejia said in an interview. And they did not. Merchant heard from only one professor by Friday who addressed the downed website. She learned about the hack attack on the social media site Reddit after she was logged out of her account while finishing an assignment."

"The Riverside students' experience underscores just how central Canvas has become to higher education in California the outage likely affected more than 1 million of the state's university students, including at Berkeley City and the rest of the Peralta Community College District. The hack has raised serious questions about how schools should be vetting and balancing their use of online platforms, to what extent they may be held liable for breaches, and what rol"

A hacker attack brought the Canvas online education platform down, cutting off access for students across the United States and especially in California. Students at UC Riverside and other California institutions lost assignments, tests, required readings, and a primary way to communicate with instructors. The disruption occurred during a critical period when students were preparing for midterms or finals. Some students reported that professors did not reach out promptly, leaving them without guidance while logged out of Canvas. The outage affected more than one million university students in California, including those at Berkeley City College and other community colleges. The incident raised questions about how schools evaluate online platforms, how they balance reliance on them, and what liability may apply after breaches.

Read at www.berkeleyside.org