The University of Missouri – St. Louis told its students that the entire Canvas system is down on Thursday.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — A nationwide digital security breach has affected students at the University of Missouri and over 9,000 other education institutions that use the online service Canvas.
Mizzou students who attempted to log on to Canvas on Thursday afternoon to access educational materials were instead greeted with a message from a hacker group known as “ShinyHunters,” which has taken credit for multiple extortion cyberattacks since 2019. The message threatened to release school data unless officials negotiated a settlement with the hackers. They did not list a specific dollar amount.
Students at the University of Missouri – St. Louis received a message from the college just before 5 p.m. on Thursday saying that the entire Canvas system is down. Officials said they’d work with Canvas officials to restore access as soon as possible.
Missouri S&T students were also affected by the ransomware attack, college officials told 5 On Your Side, but the extent of the data breach is still being investigated.
Multiple St. Louis area high schools and other non-higher education institutions also use Canvas and may have had their data breached. 5 On Your Side is working to learn how many schools are affected.
New Jersey’s Rutgers University also said it was affected by the attack, and knew about it as early as May 5, according to the university’s website.
“The Office of Information Technology is aware of a nationwide security incident involving Canvas, the university’s learning management system. We are actively monitoring updates from Instructure and assessing any impact to university services.” Rutgers officials said. “This is a vendor-driven, nationwide event affecting multiple institutions.”
See the message from ShinyHunters that appeared on students’ Canvas logins here:
This is a developing situation. This article will be updated with the latest information as it is released.
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