Canvas cybersecurity breach impacting millions of students prompts alerts nationwide
Canvas cybersecurity breach impacting millions of students prompts alerts nationwide
Publish Date: 2026-05-08 13:15:00
Source Domain: www.ksbw.com
A major cybersecurity breach has been reported for the online education platform Canvas, used by schools and universities across the country. Canvas is widely used, with tens of millions of users worldwide. A threat message posted online by a group calling itself “ShinyHunters” claims it breached Instructure, the company behind the Canvas learning management system, and threatened to leak data tied to affected schools unless contacted by May 12, 2026. The threat message is also visible to some students when they log in to Canvas.The message, which references “affected schools” and a file allegedly containing a list of institutions, has circulated online as schools across the country respond to the incident. The claims in the post have not been independently verified by KSBW 8, but multiple colleges and universities have confirmed they were notified of a security incident.Schools across the Monterey Bay region are responding after Instructure, the company behind the Canvas learning management system, notified customers of an external security incident that may have exposed data from educational institutions worldwide.Monterey Peninsula College told students and staff that its Canvas platform remains available and operational and said the college’s internal network was not affected by the incident.“Instructure, the company that supports our Canvas learning management system and a provider to thousands of colleges and universities worldwide, has alerted customers to an external security incident,” MPC Information Technology Services said in a campus message. “At this time, MPC’s Canvas instance remains available and operational for Students and Faculty. Please note, MPC’s network was not impacted in any way by Instructure’s incident.”The college said it is monitoring the situation and has taken proactive steps to confirm the security of its internal systems.California State University, Monterey Bay, also alerted its campus community…
