(Credit: ShinyHunters)
UPDATE 5/8: Canvas is back up. However, Canvas’s developer, Instructure, has temporarily shut down the "Free-For-Teacher" service after hackers exploited it to infiltrate the platform.
Original Story:
A cybercriminal gang has disrupted numerous schools by shutting down Canvas, an online educational IT system used for online courses, study guides, and testing.
Students and professors trying to access Canvas are seeing an extortion note from ShinyHunters, a cybercriminal group that’s been on a spree of high-profile breaches in recent weeks.
“ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again),” the note says, referring to the company that develops Canvas. Last Friday, Instructure disclosed it had suffered a “cybersecurity incident,” prompting it to revoke the attacker's access.
Yesterday, Instructure reported that Canvas was “fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.” But now ShinyHunters is gloating about breaking back in. The extortion note also claims to have stolen data from the affected schools after Instructure indicated that names, email addresses, and student ID numbers had been exposed.
The note from ShinyHunters adds: “Instead of contacting us to resolve it [Instructure] ignored us and did some ‘security patches.’” The group is also giving both Instructure and the affected schools until Tuesday, May 12th, to negotiate a payment, or else the stolen data will be leaked.
An attached text file also claims the number of affected institutions is nearly 9,000, which includes school districts. Universities and colleges, including Princeton, Penn State, Baylor University, and the University of British Columbia, have since confirmed they’re facing a Canvas outage. One even warned: "If you are logged in, please log out now and change your CWL password immediately."
Penn State added: "Out of an abundance of caution, users should avoid interacting with or clicking on any links, messages, or content that may be posted by threat actors or appear suspicious during this event. Penn State will never direct users to unverified third-party sites for Canvas-related communications or remediation activities."
The outage came at an especially bad time, given that many universities are holding finals exams. "My poor students were quite literally taking a final exam when this happened. Long essay format. I'm praying it's all saved for them!" wrote one user on Reddit.
"I have a final tomorrow, I fear I may be screwed," wrote another student, although others wonder if their schools will be forced to reschedule.
Instructure didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But Dark Web Informer reports that ShinyHunters has apparently removed the company from the gang’s site on the dark web, suggesting Instructure may have paid the ransom.
ShinyHunters is known for making English-language phone calls and impersonating employees to trick company employees into handing over access to their IT systems. Last month, the group claimed responsibility for stealing data from Vimeo and home security provider ADT. That said, ShinyHunters has been known to hype their hacking claims when the actual stolen details have little impact on victim companies, as in the case of Rockstar Games.
Still, the Canvas breach will bring the group even more notoriety and heightened scrutiny from law enforcement. Malware library and research site Vx Underground noted that “ShinyHunters is having their ALPHV moment,” referring to another infamous hacking gang. In 2024, ALPHV was behind the Change Healthcare attack, which shut down IT systems at hospitals and pharmacies. ALPHV then apparently disbanded
For now, ShinyHunters merely told PCMag in an email: “Yes we are behind it [the Canvas breach], we have no further comments to make at this time.” The group later added: "we are not known to exaggerate our claims nor have we are done so."