On Thursday, thousands of colleges in the United States dependent on Instructure’s Learning Management System (LMS) Canvas face an outage starting Thursday afternoon.
The Black Hat hacker group named ShinyNet put up a message on the platform, taking responsibility for the cyberattack. Millions of students and staff who logged into the platform on Thursday afternoon were greeted with a message from ShinyNet.
The message, notably, said that they have data of over 250 million students and staff and they plan on leaking it if a ransom demand they made to Instructure. The exact amount demanded in ransom was not revealed, but a deadline of May 12 was provided.
What The Message Said
The message instructed the colleges affected by the cyberattack to get in touch with a cyber advisory firm and contact Instructure via the instant messaging app Tox.
Also read: Canvas down after ShinyHunters hack: Harvard, Duke among schools affected; check list
“If any of the schools in the affected list are interested in preventing the release of their data, please consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact us privately at TOX to negotiate a settlement,” the message read. “You have till the end of the day by 12 May 2026 before everything is leaked.”
The message was flashing on the homepage of Canvas starting around 3:30pm. However, by 4:20pm that message was updated to read: “Canvas is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Check back soon.”
Schools Release Update On Issue
Multiple colleges issued statements on the Canvas outage affecting community. The group claimed that more than 9,000 colleges were affected but a comprehensive list has not been provided by Canvas yet. Among the colleges which acknowledged the outage was Harvard, Duke, University of Florida, Penn State and many more.
Also read: Canvas down today: Amid outage issues; chilling ShinyHunters hack message emerges – how to fix
“As you may be aware, the Canvas Learning Management System is currently experiencing an outage due to a cybersecurity incident targeting Instructure, the parent company of Canvas,” University of Florida said in a statement. “This incident is not isolated to the University of Florida and is affecting more than 8,000 educational institutions worldwide.
“UF leadership is aware of the situation and is monitoring it,” it added.
Harvard also acknowledged it with the students’ newspaper; The Harvard Crimson did a report that noted that students lost access to the Harvard server of Canvas this afternoon.
As of now, there is no word from Canvas on when the platform will be back up again.
