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<\/p>\nStudents at some universities, colleges, and K-12 school districts across California \u2014 and the nation \u2014 are unable to access Canvas, the online learning management platform used for class assignments, tests, and more, amid an apparent large-scale data breach of the platform.<\/p>\n
Instructure, the company that manages Canvas, initially reported a cybersecurity incident involving a \u201ccriminal threat actor\u201d on May 1. While the company has since taken steps to secure its systems, colleges using Canvas across the nation began reporting that the platform was inaccessible on Thursday, May 7.<\/p>\n
The California State University system, which serves more than 470,000 students at 23 campuses across the state, said on Thursday that Canvas was down for all of its users at all campuses and at the CSU Chancellor\u2019s Office, which is headquartered in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstructure is working diligently to gather more information and get systems restored,\u201d the CSU wrote on its website. \u201cThis situation is fluid, and we are working with Instructure to determine the full scope of impact and will provide updates as soon as they are available.\u201d<\/p>\n
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This message from an apparent cybercriminal group dubbed \u201cShiny Hunters\u201d was shown to some CSUN students attempting to access Canvas on Thursday, May 7. (Courtesy photo).\n<\/p>\n
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A message from CSUN\u2019s Information Security Officer regarding the ongoing Canvas cyber incident sent to students on Thursday, May 7. (Courtesy photo).\n<\/p>\n
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This message from an apparent cybercriminal group dubbed \u201cShiny Hunters\u201d was shown to some CSUN students attempting to access Canvas on Thursday, May 7. (Courtesy photo).\n<\/p>\n
Expand<\/a><\/p>\n Instructure, in an incident report log posted on May 6,<\/a> said that some information potential at risk on account of the security breach includes identifying information including names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages between Canvas users.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this time, we have found no evidence that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved. If that changes, we will notify any impacted institutions,\u201d the Instructure log said.<\/p>\n Some social media users posted online Thursday, May 7, reporting that their access to Canvas had been blocked \u2014 and instead, they were shown messages from the apparent perpetrator of the attack, a group that identified itself as \u201cShiny Hunters.\u201d<\/p>\n The message, apparently from Shiny Hunters, claims that it will release the data it obtained from affected schools on May 12, 2026, unless Instructure or any of the impacted schools \u201cconsult with a cyber advisory firm\u201d and contact Shiny Hunters \u201cprivately\u201d to \u201cnegotiate a settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n None of the impacted colleges or universities, nor Instructure, have confirmed the identity of the perpetrator of the attack as of around 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 7.<\/p>\n All 116 colleges governed by California Community Colleges \u2014 including Long Beach City College, Coast Community College District\u2019s Orange Coast, Goldenwest, and Coastline Colleges, and more \u2014 have been impacted, according to California Community Colleges officials.<\/p>\n \u201cCanvas is currently down for the California Community Colleges system. Instructure, the provider of Canvas, is actively working to resolve this most recent security issue,\u201d a Thursday statement from LBCC officials said. \u201cLBCC Information Technology Services, the Chancellor\u2019s Office, and the California Community Colleges Security Center are monitoring this situation and will provide updates when possible.\u201d<\/p>\n California Community Colleges have also advised that some of their Canvas users have reported receiving emails from the hacker group, and advising anyone who has received the email to ignore it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe email claims hackers have been monitoring the user\u2019s activity on web browsers and seeks payment in Bitcoin within 48 hours to have any compromising information deleted,\u201d the CCC said on its website. \u201cThis is a scam and anyone receiving such a message should delete it immediately. Do not click on any links, open any attachments, download files, or respond.\u201d<\/p>\n Officials from the Rancho Santiago Canyon Community College District advised its Canvas users to reset their passwords if they accessed the platform anytime after 12 p.m. on Thursday, \u201cout of an abundance of caution.\u201d<\/p>\n University of California campuses also appear to be impacted by the cybersecurity incident.<\/p>\n Maryam Qazi, a UC Irvine student studying art history, was in an afternoon class when her professor alerted her to an \u201cissue\u201d with Canvas.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried to open Canvas, but it\u2019s just inaccessible, you just can\u2019t open it,\u201d Qazi said. \u201cThe whole campus is going through it. Everyone is talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Canvas, Qazi said, is the \u201ccrux\u201d of how UCI students get their work done. A portal for submitting assignments, adding discussion posts, taking tests and quizzes and even viewing grades, professor feedback and course syllabi \u2014 \u201dall of that is so specific to Canvas,\u201d Qazi said.<\/p>\n And for UCI students, who operate under the quarter system, \u201cwe are just finishing up midterm week, so there\u2019s still stuff needing to be done,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cI have another paper due this Saturday,\u201d she said, \u201cso even if it\u2019s down for another 24 hours, we are going to have a bunch of problems.\u201d<\/p>\n UC San Diego also issued a statement to its community on Thursday, saying that the cyberattack is impacting users \u201cglobally,\u201d and advising users to avoid attempting to access Canvas in any way.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize that this disruption will affect academic programs. Students should wait for instructions from their instructors on temporary measures for submitting course assignments and accessing materials until this situation can be resolved,\u201d the UCSD statement said. \u201cUpdates will be provided to the campus as more information becomes available.\u201d<\/p>\n Long Beach Unified School District, in a statement posted to its website on Thursday, said that it is aware of the cybersecurity incident and has restricted access to Canvas for its students as a result.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are closely monitoring this situation and will provide additional information as available,\u201d LBUSD said.<\/p>\n The CSU and California Community Colleges, meanwhile, have established websites to provide updates on the incident.<\/p>\n They can be accessed at lts.calstate.edu\/csu-canvas-incident-reports<\/a> and cccsecuritycenter.org\/updates\/canvas.php<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students at some universities, colleges, and K-12 school districts across California \u2014 and the nation \u2014 are unable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,8,1815,723,3208,15,2306,131,133,132,137,100,611,612,5518,136],"class_list":["post-305124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-college","tag-crime","tag-cybersecurity","tag-education","tag-higher-education","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-riverside-county","tag-san-bernardino-county","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}