Cyberattack disrupts Canvas access nationwide, impacting schools and universities

(ASSOCIATED PRESS) Tens of thousands of students studying for final exams around the world Friday regained access to a key online learning system after a cyberattack had earlier knocked it offline, throwing schools and universities into turmoil.

Elizabeth Polo was in a creative writing class at the University of Maryland late Thursday afternoon when a classmate shouted, “Canvas got hacked.” A message from a hacking collective flashed on her computer screen.

“Our whole class just like was like freaking out about it,” said Polo, a junior. “Our poor professor was trying to get everyone to calm down but it was just kind of chaos.”

Across academia, the outage set off panic and confusion as students and faculty members found themselves locked out of a platform they rely on to manage grades and access course notes and assignments. Colleges scrambled to reschedule final exams as students lost any way to access materials they needed to study.

Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said in an update late Thursday that the system was available for most users. Instructure has not posted about the attack on its social media, and the company didn’t immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press asking whether it paid a ransom and inquiring about what happened with the compromised data.

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