Canvas, an educational platform used by many school districts and universities, is experiencing a nationwide data breach that is impacting thousands of schools across the country during the most stressful time of year for many students: final exams.
Here’s what’s happening.
What is Canvas?
Canvas is a learning management system (LMS) owned by Instructure. Academic institutions, including K-12 schools and universities, use it in a number of ways.
For example, students can submit assignments, take quizzes/exams and message their teachers and classmates while instructors often use it to input grades, upload instructional materials and share announcements with their classes.
In-person, online and hybrid classes use Canvas to distribute and manage coursework.
The platform has more than 30 million users worldwide, according to Instructure.
What happened with Canvas? Was it hacked?
Instructure experienced two different breaches of Canvas, the first on April 29 and the second May 7.
“Out of caution, we temporarily took Canvas offline into maintenance mode to contain the activity, investigate and apply additional safeguards,” Instructure said on their website.
The company claims in their security update that they discovered how the group was able to hack the system on both occasions and has temporarily shut down their Free-For-Teachers accounts.
A hacker group called ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for the cyberattack.
CNN reported the group demanded settlements from Instructure and/or individually impacted academic institutions to prevent data from being leaked.
What schools are affected by the Canvas hacking?
Locally, Carmel Clay and Washington Township have acknowledged it was affected. Indiana University and Ivy Tech Community College were also impacted, according to WTHR.
Washington Township Schools sent parents a message stating it didn’t appear birthdates, government identifiers or financial information were part of the data collected by hackers.
At the time, many schools have ceased using Canvas until further information is shared by Instructure.
When will Canvas be fixed?
At the time of publication, some users are still reporting problems with Canvas, according to DownDetector.
The status of Canvas according to Instructure is unclear. The website states as of 11:17 p.m. EDT on May 7, “Canvas is now available for most users,” but Canvas LMS, the platform as a whole, is currently listed as “under maintenance.”
On the incident update page, Instructure states “Canvas is fully back online and available for use,” but users are still reporting issues logging in and accessing their coursework.
It is unknown as of late Friday morning when Canvas will be back online and fully operational for all users.
For more information, those affected can check Canvas’ status at status.instructure.com and visit instructure.com/incident_update for answers to FAQs about the data breach.
Jen Guadarrama contributed to this report.
Katie Wiseman covers trending news for IndyStar and Midwest Connect. Contact her at klwiseman@indystar.com. Follow her on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Instructure says Canvas is operational. Some users still having issues
Reporting by Katie Wiseman, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
