Thousands of universities are facing disruptions due to outages on the Canvas learning platform, reportedly linked to a hacking incident. Reports of problems with Canvas began surfacing on Thursday afternoon, with the volume of complaints appearing to decline after several hours, according to DownDetector.
The hacking group ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for the breach, which follows a data compromise on May 7. A notice on the University of Pennsylvania’s Canvas page warned institutions to contact the hackers by May 12 to prevent further data release.
In response to these issues, Instructure, the company behind Canvas, has placed the platform into maintenance mode, stating they expect to restore services soon and will provide updates as available. However, Instructure has not disclosed the specific cause of the outages.