Cyberattack shutters Canvas learning platform for schools across the U.S.
CBS News • • general
Key Points:
- Thousands of schools and universities experienced outages of the Canvas learning management system on Thursday due to a cyberattack claimed by the hacking group ShinyHunters, disrupting students' ability to study for finals.
- Major institutions affected include Penn State, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Columbia University, UCLA, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and Harvard, with some canceling exams and restricting access to course materials.
- ShinyHunters reportedly accessed billions of private messages and records from nearly 9,000 schools worldwide and threatened to leak the data, with extortion discussions possibly ongoing.
- The attack highlights the growing vulnerability of education systems rich in digitized data, which are increasingly targeted by criminal hackers seeking sensitive information.
- Instructure, the company behind Canvas, has not publicly commented extensively on the breach, but restored service for most users late Thursday; cybersecurity experts note similarities to previous attacks on other educational platforms.
