UW students locked out of Canvas after nationwide cybersecurity breach
UW students locked out of Canvas after nationwide cybersecurity breach
Publish Date: 2026-05-07 23:43:00
Source Domain: www.tmj4.com
University of Wisconsin students were locked out of Canvas in the middle of finals week after a cybersecurity breach hit the platform nationwide.
Canvas is a widely used app that allows students and teachers to access courses, submit assignments, and view grades. UW-Milwaukee student Clare Daily said she was on Canvas studying for her chemistry exam when access suddenly disappeared.
“All of a sudden it just wasn’t loading. And then so I reloaded the page, and I got the little note from the hackers,” Daily said.
Daily took a picture of the pop-up, which claimed a group called “ShinyHunters” breached the system and threatened to leak information. Students were later met with an error message blocking access to study materials.
The timing added stress ahead of exams.
“I’m very nervous. I do not do great in this class, and just not having those materials did not help. I hope I did well,” Daily said.
Other UW-Milwaukee students also lost access. Charles Rouhoff said the outage came at a difficult time.
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“It was definitely a little stressful, because it was like, I got some stuff to do tomorrow night and tonight,” Rouhoff said.
Fellow student Finley Kunz said the breach raised broader concerns.
“I think it just raises a concern for, like, cybersecurity in general, because if they can hack Canvas and affect everybody, what else can they hack?” Kunz said.
The Universities of Wisconsin said its teams are working to address the issue. In a statement, spokesperson Mark Pitsch said:
“The original breach, first reported May 1, affects the cloud-based system operated by Instructure, and affects all Universities of Wisconsin campuses,” Pitsch said.
On May 6, Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, said data taken in a Canvas breach…
