Canvas by Instructure is reeling after hacker group ShinyHunters carried out a breach. Several users posted the message from the Blackhat group amid the reported outage.
“SHINY HUNTERS rooting your systems since 19 😉 ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again). Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us and did some “security patches”. A WARNING 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. You have till the end of the day by 12 May 2026 before everything is leaked. Instructure still has until EOD 12 May 2026 to contact us,” the message read.
Many also said that they were seeing messages that Canvas was undergoing ‘scheduled maintenance’. As per Downdetector, over 8,000 people faced problems with Canvas at the peak, and currently reports indicate over 1200 users remain impacted by the issue.
This has left many wondering when Canvas might be back up. “When will Canvas go back up?,” one person asked on X. Another added “hey so when do yall think canvas is going to be back up.” Yet another said “As much as I hate canvas pls go back up I need to submit my final paper and take an exam.”
What is wrong with Canvas, when will Canvas be back up?
Instructure provided an update on what went wrong. “Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test are under maintenance,” they noted. However, they did not say anything about the hack on the status page. Days back, Instructure had reported a security breach and ShinyHunters, the hacker group, had taken credit for the same.
Also Read | Canvas gets ShinyNet’s ransom demand amid outage; deadline in focus as colleges face outage
The company added “We are currently investigating this issue.” As of 17:37 Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) or 19:37 Eastern Time (ET), Instructure has not made it clear when Canvas might be back up. They said “Instructure has placed Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test in maintenance mode.”
However, the company provided a positive update, saying they expected services to being ‘up soon’. They promised to ‘provide updates as soon as possible.’
Canvas breach list: Expert gives advice to schools
The ShinyHunters Canvas breach reportedly impacted Harvard, MIT, and Oxford, other major organizations, including Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Cambridge, Cornell, Berkeley, and Georgetown as per TechRadar. Amid this, a cybersecurity expert shared advice for schools and universities on the list.
He wrote on X “Anyone in college or with kids in school – Canvas has been hacked and the bad actors (hackers) are using stolen data to directly message impacted students.”
“In this instance it is important to not respond or even acknowledge the message as it leads to further harassment. Nothing will be clear in the short term. Nearly 9,000 schools and 275 million students impacted – this one’s going to leave a mark. Stay safe and only trust official school communications,” the individual added.
