Cyberattack hits Canvas learning tool before final exams:Systems at thousands of schools crash amid panic over massive data leak threats

A major outage hit the Canvas online learning platform on Thursday following a reported cyberattack, disrupting academic activities at thousands of schools and universities worldwide just ahead of final examinations. Canvas, widely used for online classes, assignments, grades, lecture videos and exam materials, became inaccessible for millions of students and teachers, leaving many unable to access study notes, lecture slides and examination resources. Students across several institutions took to social media to report difficulties in preparing for exams after the platform went down. Hacker group claims responsibility According to Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, the hacker group “ShinyHunters” has claimed responsibility for the attack. The group allegedly said it had accessed billions of private messages and records linked to nearly 9,000 educational institutions. Reports said the hackers had been threatening to leak data since Sunday and had issued deadlines for Thursday and May 12, raising concerns that the incident may be linked to ransomware activity. However, Canvas parent company Instructure has not yet confirmed whether the outage was caused directly by hackers or whether the platform was temporarily shut down for security reasons. Universities report widespread disruption Several universities in the United States described the incident as a serious cybersecurity issue affecting academic operations. The University of Iowa termed it a “national-level cybersecurity incident,” while Virginia Tech said the outage had disrupted final exams and semester-related activities. Meanwhile, University of Texas at San Antonio reportedly postponed some final examinations because of the disruption. A senior lecturer at University of Pennsylvania said students had relied heavily on Canvas throughout the semester and that the outage had severely affected the academic system. Education sector increasingly targeted Cybersecurity experts noted that educational institutions are increasingly becoming targets for cybercriminals because of the large volume of digital data they store. Several school districts and universities in the United States have faced major cyberattacks in recent years.. ​