Several East Tennessee schools affected by nationwide cybersecurity attack
Several East Tennessee schools affected by nationwide cybersecurity attack
Publish Date: 2026-05-08 14:06:00
Source Domain: www.wbir.com
A cybersecurity incident with the Canvas learning platform impacted several schools in the region, including the University of Tennessee and Maryville City Schools.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A cybersecurity attack on the Canvas learning platform is affecting schools and colleges nationwide, including several in East Tennessee.
Instructure, the company that runs the Canvas learning management system used by more than 7,000 universities, K-12 districts and education ministries worldwide, disclosed the breach to affected institutions this week. The company confirmed names, email addresses, student ID numbers and private messages between users had been accessed before the breach was contained.
The University of Tennessee in Knoxville confirmed it uses Canvas and sent the following message to faculty, staff and students on Thursday night:
Faculty, staff and students, We need to alert you that Instructure, Canvas’ parent company, has shut down Canvas nationwide due to a cybersecurity incident that has affected education institutions across the country.
We do not know when service will be restored. Instructure has posted a status page to share updates on the outage. We will follow up when Canvas is available. All faculty are urged to be flexible and compassionate with students during the Canvas outage, especially as we are entering exams. Please communicate with your students, reassure them, and keep them aware of any changes for your class. You can email your class via the Faculty Waitlist in Banner (through MyUTK Top Links Faculty/Advisors).
We will send a non-emergency UTAlert when Canvas is online. We will also provide an update for students and faculty on Friday morning.
UT sent another alert on Friday…
