Canvas cybersecurity breach impacting colleges and universities
Canvas cybersecurity breach impacting colleges and universities
https://www.kcci.com/article/canvas-cybersecurity-breach-colleges-universities/71246097
Publish Date: 2026-05-08 06:15:00
Source Domain: www.kcci.com
A major cybersecurity breach for the online education platform Canvas, used by schools and universities across the country, created chaos Thursday as students tried to study for finals.Canvas is widely used by higher education institutions, with tens of millions of users worldwide. Students and staff at the institutions use the internet-based education portal that allows students and educators to communicate, do coursework and more.Related video above: Nebraska, Creighton report security incident affecting learning management systemA threat message posted online by a group calling itself “ShinyHunters” claimed responsibility for breaching 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 was also visible to some students when they logged 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.Instructure said it detected unauthorized activity on April 26 and “immediately revoked the unauthorized party’s access” and started an investigation. Instructure on Thursday identified additional unauthorized activity tied to the same incident.”The unauthorized actor made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in through Canvas. Out of caution, we temporarily took Canvas offline into maintenance mode to contain the activity, investigate, and apply additional safeguards,” a spokesperson said.Instructure also said that the unauthorized actor carried out the activity by exploiting an issue related to its Free-For-Teacher accounts.”As a result, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily shut down Free-For-Teacher accounts. These accounts have been a core part of our platform, and we’re committed to resolving the issues with these accounts. In the meantime,…
