Canvas hack strands students during finals, universities postpone exams

techMay 8, 20261354,075

Canvas displayed a ransom message Thursday, locking students out of grades, study materials and quizzes, CNN reported. Universities across the United States and Europe paused or postponed finals and restricted access to course content while they worked to restore services. RTL reported attackers exfiltrated student data from 44 Dutch universities and schools in a large-scale breach tied to the incident. The outages threaten exam integrity and student privacy, forcing rescheduled assessments and urgent data-security reviews at affected institutions.

Jen Mercieca

@jenmercieca.bsky.social

Idk if y’all are following the Canvas hack story, but apparently whoever hacked it is holding each uni’s access to canvas for ransom. Grades are due for graduation and no one can log on. 😬

798Yesterday

Whorfin120

Gee maybe letting for-profit tech firms take over every function in universities was a bad idea?

Jen Mercieca88

Props to the hackers for kairos. 😬

Dan Lawson 55

I can give an A to each of my students if that helps

We do not stan35

Worst part is this isn't the first time Shiny Hunters has hacked the company. They never properly fixed the backdoor, allegedly.

Phil Garnock-Jones25

I recommend getting a big *sheet* of paper, *spreading* it out on a table, and writing the names and grades on it with a pencil. Presumably the papers are graded, so the information is available.

Frederick Winslow Homer Simpson23

There was a time before Canvas and Blackboard. Things worked pretty well I think I'm headed back to that world.

camerontalley.bsky.social13

Remember when canvas was self hosted by each school so this couldn’t happen? I member.

Bruce Herbert12

Ok, there is more. bsky.app/profile/jord...

Bruce Herbert11

Ok, here is another one. bsky.app/profile/nick...

Ginger Snap and Cam 🖖9

i am as concerned as hackers releasing Canvas messages, which could include sensitive/private communications about all manner of things.

Bruce Herbert7

Bluesky is on it. Some responses on Bluesky. bsky.app/profile/amos...

Emanuel Brown7

Not just the Unis. My middle schooler’s district is cooked. Or is that chopped? Can’t keep it straight. No one can get their work or grades. Total shitshow. Also, the Canvas UX is hostility.

Matthew Boedy6

Schools starting to release statements this afternoon. Could be thousands

Talos_XLIV5

Yes, I saw reports hitting here earlier today sometime around noon-ish. I had an opportunity at the start of 2026 to have/use Canvas on my laptop for distance learning and said, "No thanks. Pass." Our interconnectedness is truly a double-edged sword and I, for one, have grown quite wary of it.

Middle Manager Mom ☕️5

Yup. My son is a senior in the middle of midterms. 🫠

Marie Francois3

The two schools I teach at in California have come back online. One CSU csme back first, and one CCI. I wonder if the negotiations were at the system level

Lacey (she/her)3

It’s almost like having a backup externally is a good precaution

Cody Harrison3

this afternoon I got the message from shinyhunters yeah, I wonder how many people saw that and not the schools "scheduled maintenance" page

I’m BLACK & I’m proud-say it loud…2

I thought ppl were talking about the website where you make t-shirts.😂 This is bad. I wonder who did it.

Meredith Slota2

Is the ransom cancelling student loan debt? If so, I’m into it.

Emmytation2

whaaaaaat is that why it was fucked up yesterday I thought my university had rolled out the new login procedure early and gummed up the works I KNEW Canvas was screwy!

David M. Perry

@lollardfish.bsky.social

Today is a good day to pitch your local outlet something about the canvas hack. Put TIMELY in the subject line. Describe yourself as an educator in a few lines (two sentence!). Then make an argument.

55013h ago

David M. Perry322

My arguments are: the people who made this happen our administrators and Tech CEOs, none of whom are going to suffer as a result of the vulnerability they created. Universities should go back to serving humans.

alana (screaming forever)24

Us students too! This week was finals and we spent all day yesterday stressing over whether or not we'd be able to take our final today and get our projects submitted. Thankfully it was back up by this morning (just finished) but JFC that's not good stress to deal with.

David M. Perry13

Ahem. If this interests you, you’ll like the public scholar bsky.app/profile/loll...

Jesse Berney8

My daughter (in high school) was just complaining about this this morning!

Amy Ruffo5

I mean isn’t this squarely the responsibility of the tech industry—the CEO/CISO of Instructure?

Matthew Nadler4

Also, this the kind of story that goes beyond Canvas, since there are dozens of companies that provide the same service.

Victoria Livingstone4

Totally agree! I stopped teaching in 2024 (I now write and edit full-time). If I were still in the classroom, I'd be pitching this today.

biohAZYRd4

THATS WHY CANVAS IS DOWN????? Fuck I thought it was just maintenance. I just got an email from my school saying it'd be offline until the 13th - and I have projects to do that I can't see because it's down U g H

Craig Johnson4

just did this! thanks for the suggestion

Steven Teasdale2

The simplest way, I think, is for administrators to allow instructors to opt-out of any educational software platform if they choose, and ignore any complaints about it.

Erik Vorhes2

As a former aspiring educator and current tech worker, I have … thoughts. I’ll probably just blog it, though your skeet is motivating!

WIRED

@wired.com

Thousands of schools around the US were paralyzed on Thursday after education tech firm Instructure shut down access to its Canvas platform following a breach by hackers going by the name ShinyHunters. www.wired.com/story/canvas...

20321h ago

Dave Paoletti9

Going after academics and students?! C’mon, man. As if this field isn’t plagued by enough problems. ShinyHunters need to watch Robin Hood again or something and rethink their strategy.

Todd Austin8

Instructure shut down access? The splash screen we all got with the ransom demand made it pretty clear that it was the hackers who shut Instructure down.

hankp.bsky.social8

If hackers started releasing government secrets like the Epstein files they'd be heroes. Instead they mess with school kids.

Miriam Posner

@miriamposner.com

The timing of this Canvas hack made me laugh, since this is my class’s very next assigned reading (which they now can’t access lol) eric.ed.gov?q=lms+AND+k1...

261Yesterday

Miriam Posner61

Irony has not been lost on the students, who’ve been emailing me the ransom note. 😂

Jed Brown6

Yes! Here's an author's copy. May this mark a turning point in embracing friction and organizing to demand privacy. www.lawrencequill.com/uploads/1/7/...

Jason Koebler

@jasonkoebler.bsky.social

The Canvas hack is truly terrifying and could have all kinds of knock-on effects. Student messages to professors can be particularly sensitive. @linkletter.org helps contextualize this: www.404media.co/the-biggest-...

16810h ago

drewtoothpaste4

my kid uses Canvas in school, it's clunky at the best of times and is notoriously frustrating for students, parents and teachers. we weren't notified of this at all until yesterday, when the school district emailed about the breach. canvas itself told the end users nothing!

Andrew Couts

@couts.bsky.social

NEW: Here's what to know about the Canvas hack and the group claiming responsibility. @lhn.bsky.social and @agreenberg.bsky.social report: www.wired.com/story/canvas...

9221h ago

Norm Charlatan

@normcharlatan.bsky.social

Worried that the Canvas hack means that I have lost all of the IP to my online course, Faces of Paul Giamatti.

171Yesterday

Matt Johnson8

Sounds like things went… Sideways

sleve mcdichael2

this was more informative than the vague email my school sent out

David Hull 胡大衛

@hushuo.bsky.social

If the end of the semester Canvas hack has taught us anything, it's that universities need to double down on giving everything to borderline monopoly tech run by megalomaniac private equity dbags.

97Yesterday

Keith Ng10

Goodbye 40% of budget going to Canvas! Hello 35% of budget going to Canvas and 25% of budget going to Canvas Premium Protection Support!

Jackalope Proxy8

Whenever Canvas comes back online again IT leadership at schools, colleges and universities need to request Instructure return ALL of their data and hold Instructure in breech of SLA commitments. Instructure and their private equity handlers should be put out of business.

Nolan Zugernat3

It’s a big problem. On the other hand though, running your own system these days carries security risks that a lot of schools just don’t have the resources to handle. I’m OK with returning to paper.

Joseph Cox

@josephcox.bsky.social

The Canvas hack is "the biggest student data privacy disaster in history." For years critics have been warning about the centralization of EdTech. Well, millions of students being locked out is what happens when you do exactly that www.404media.co/the-biggest-...

6310h ago

noam chompers

@noamchompers.bsky.social

just hearing about the Canvas hack. really worried about the fate of my intellectual property (last minute Announcements apologetically cancelling class for Personal Reasons)

71Yesterday

Greg Pak

@gregpak.net

Turned in grades via Canvas and literally two hours later saw these posts about the Canvas hack.

75Yesterday

Seth Rudy

@sethrudy.bsky.social

Between LLMs, WiFi outages, and Canvas hacks, we gotta start running colleges like Battlestar Galactica. Everything unnetworked; fuck the Cylons

59Yesterday

Andy Famiglietti12

If department chairs were issued hard-wired phones that looked like WWII radio sets and were required to answer them "English Department Actual" we would never have trouble recruiting chair candidates again

Permission2BFancy4

All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again!

Pete2

Mr. Gaeta, start the clock

Congressman Don Beyer

@beyer.house.gov

9,000 schools across the country are being affected by a massive hack right now that is shutting down Canvas during finals week for millions of American students (including me).

48Yesterday

Congressman Don Beyer84

It would be nice if we had an FBI Director focused on responding to things like this with the same verve he shows for abusing his power to investigate people who discuss his consumption of alcohol.

Dani Aiello

@aiellodani.bsky.social

The cool thing about the Canvas hack carnage is that if you search Canvas on Bluesky you get to read a bunch of snarky faculty hot takes AND see a bunch of gorgeous acrylic and oil paintings at the same time

66Yesterday