Mass. schools hit by nationwide Canvas cybersecurity incident during final exams

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The learning management system Canvas suffered a nationwide outage Thursday, causing a disruption on college campuses across the country, before the platform was restored early Friday.According to several Massachusetts schools, the platform was affected by a cybersecurity incident, which rendered the site useless for users.Instructure, Canvas’ parent company, said it detected unauthorized activity on April 26 and “immediately revoked the unauthorized party’s access” and started an investigation. Instructure on Thursday identified additional unauthorized activity tied to the same incident. “The unauthorized actor made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in through Canvas. Out of caution, we temporarily took Canvas offline into maintenance mode to contain the activity, investigate, and apply additional safeguards,” a spokesperson said. Instructure also said that the unauthorized actor carried out the activity by exploiting an issue related to its Free-For-Teacher accounts. “As a result, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily shut down Free-For-Teacher accounts. These accounts have been a core part of our platform, and we’re committed to resolving the issues with these accounts. In the meantime, Canvas is fully back online and available for use.”The hacking group named ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emisoft. Screenshots he provided showed that the group began threatening on Sunday to leak a trove of data, giving deadlines of Thursday and May 12. Connolly said the later date indicates that discussions regarding extortion payments may be ongoing.Several local universities were affected, including Harvard University, MIT, Boston College, UMass Amherst and Northeastern University.UMass Lowell announced that Friday’s scheduled final exams would be delayed until Monday due to the outage. The school also said some access to Canvas is being restored, but students are still strongly advised not to log in. The university said it is “leaving the status of Canvas as ‘major outage’ while they evaluate stability and security of the platform.”UMass Lowell said its next update is expected at 8 a.m.Northeastern addressed the outage, confirming on its website “that Instructure, the company that provides Canvas, is responding to a major cybersecurity incident affecting its platform across the education sector.”Northeastern students and faculty were advised to refrain from using the platform until the issue was resolved.The student newspaper at Harvard reported that the system was down there, too. Public school districts also sought to reassure parents, with officials in Spokane, Washington, writing that they aren’t “aware of any sensitive data contained in this breach.”Connolly described ShinyHunters as a loose affiliation of teenagers and young adults based in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The group also has been tied to other attacks, including one aimed at Live Nation’s Ticketmaster subsidiary. NewsCenter 5 will continue to provide updates as we learn more information.The Associated Press contributed to this report.

BOSTON — The learning management system Canvas suffered a nationwide outage Thursday, causing a disruption on college campuses across the country, before the platform was restored early Friday.According to several Massachusetts schools, the platform was affected by a cybersecurity incident, which rendered the site useless for users.

Instructure, Canvas’ parent company, said it detected unauthorized activity on April 26 and “immediately revoked the unauthorized party’s access” and started an investigation. Instructure on Thursday identified additional unauthorized activity tied to the same incident. “The unauthorized actor made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in through Canvas. Out of caution, we temporarily took Canvas offline into maintenance mode to contain the activity, investigate, and apply additional safeguards,” a spokesperson said. Instructure also said that the unauthorized actor carried out the activity by exploiting an issue related to its Free-For-Teacher accounts. “As a result, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily shut down Free-For-Teacher accounts. These accounts have been a core part of our platform, and we’re committed to resolving the issues with these accounts. In the meantime, Canvas is fully back online and available for use.”

The hacking group named ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emisoft.
Screenshots he provided showed that the group began threatening on Sunday to leak a trove of data, giving deadlines of Thursday and May 12. Connolly said the later date indicates that discussions regarding extortion payments may be ongoing.Several local universities were affected, including Harvard University, MIT, Boston College, UMass Amherst and Northeastern University.UMass Lowell announced that Friday’s scheduled final exams would be delayed until Monday due to the outage. The school also said some access to Canvas is being restored, but students are still strongly advised not to log in. The university said it is “leaving the status of Canvas as ‘major outage’ while they evaluate stability and security of the platform.”UMass Lowell said its next update is expected at 8 a.m.Northeastern addressed the outage, confirming on its website “that Instructure, the company that provides Canvas, is responding to a major cybersecurity incident affecting its platform across the education sector.”Northeastern students and faculty were advised to refrain from using the platform until the issue was resolved.The student newspaper at Harvard reported that the system was down there, too. Public school districts also sought to reassure parents, with officials in Spokane, Washington, writing that they aren’t “aware of any sensitive data contained in this breach.”Connolly described ShinyHunters as a loose affiliation of teenagers and young adults based in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The group also has been tied to other attacks, including one aimed at Live Nation’s Ticketmaster subsidiary. NewsCenter 5 will continue to provide updates as we learn more information.The Associated Press contributed to this report.