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Canvas Platform Temporarily Disrupted by Cyber Incident Affecting Instructure Customers
A ransomware operation by the hacking group ShinyHunters took the widely used academic software Canvas offline this week, forcing universities in the US, Canada and Australia to postpone or cancel exams. Ransom notes demanding bitcoin payments appeared on student screens during final examinations.
May 8, 9:17 PM·3m read1 source
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A hacking group breached the academic software Canvas this week, taking the platform offline and disrupting an estimated 9,000 institutions in the US, Canada and Australia. The group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack, which caused Canvas to go offline and triggered ransom demands that appeared on computer screens during final exams.
A ransom note demanding payment in bitcoin appeared on screens.
It threatened to release stolen data unless Canvas or the affected universities paid a ransom in bitcoin. The same message encouraged universities to contact the hacking group privately to negotiate a settlement and avoid the release of their data. Mississippi State University announced that it was postponing Friday's final exams.
Aubrey Palmer, a meteorology student at Mississippi State University, had just finished a 2,900-word exam essay when the ransom note appeared on her screen. Palmer said her knee-jerk reaction was that she'd been hacked herself. Palmer said she was with her professor and dozens of other students who all received the same message.
She said she was so angry at the idea of having to redo her exam. Mississippi State University has been updating students by email, rescheduling exams, and advising them to ignore suspicious messages. The university described the incident as a "nationwide security incident".
The University of Sydney told students on Friday "Canvas was unavailable" and instructed students not to attempt to log in. The University of Sydney stated it is one of approximately 9000 institutions around the world impacted by this outage. It said it was still waiting for advice from Instructure.
