TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – A cyberattack caused chaos for students at thousands of schools as they study and take finals before being restored Friday norning.
Canvas is a popular, cloud-based digital hub for classrooms. An expert says the hacking group “Shiny-Hunters” posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed.
Students and teachers reported being locked out of their Canvas courses. Anyone trying to open the system brings up a notice that the system is under scheduled maintenance.
Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, says the platform has been fully restored.
“Canvas is fully back online and available for use. Our external forensic partner has reviewed the known indicators and found no evidence that the threat actor currently has access to the platform, the company said on their website.
“We’ve identified the underlying issue tied to Free-For-Teacher accounts and temporarily shut those accounts down to remove the access path the actor used. We’ve also revoked privileged credentials and access tokens tied to affected systems, deployed additional platform protections, rotated internal keys, restricted token creation pathways, and added monitoring across our platforms. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
They also said the FBI, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and other agencies have been notified.
Tyler ISD said while they were previously unable to access the system, Canvas is now fully back online as of around 10:30 a.m.
Major schools in Texas have been impacted by the outage. That includes the University of Texas system, including campuses in Austin, Tyler and San Antonio. Texas A&M and Rice University, Texas Tech and Baylor University are also affected.
K-12 districts like Katy ISD, Houston ISD and Austin ISD were also reporting issues. A number of East Texas districts use Canvas.
Students and teachers remain locked out as hacking group claims access to billions of recordsEarlier messages
“UT Tyler has been notified by Instructure, the third-party vendor that operates Canvas, of a recent cybersecurity incident. While this was a vendor-level incident and was not directed specifically at UT Tyler, Instructure has informed the university that it was impacted.
The company’s investigation remains ongoing, and UT Tyler has not yet received final confirmation of the full scope of information involved. Instructure reports that some personal information tied to Canvas accounts may be involved, but it has found no indication that passwords, birth dates, government IDs or financial information were affected.
Canvas continues to operate normally.
UT Tyler leadership, Information Technology, Information Security and appropriate university offices are actively monitoring the situation and working with Instructure to assess any specific impacts to UT Tyler systems or data,” the university said in an email statement to KLTV.
UT Tyler Information Security encouraged users to remain aware, saying such activity can lead to phishing attempts or other “suspicious communication.”
The university asks users to follow these guidelines:
Do not provide passwords, multi-factor authentication codes, personal information or account details in response to unsolicited emails, phone calls, text messages or other communications.Do not click suspicious links or open unexpected attachments claiming to be from Canvas, Instructure or UT Tyler.Access Canvas directly through official UT Tyler links rather than through links in unsolicited messages.If you receive a suspicious message or are unsure whether a request is legitimate, please report it immediately by using the “Report Suspicious” or “Report Phish” button in your email.
UT Tyler advised users to access Canvas directly through official UT Tyler links rather than through links in unsolicited messages.
UT’s Canvas webpage stated that while some user data was exposed — names, email addresses and student IDs — no passwords, Social Security numbers or financial information were compromised.
The platform is used differently by schools, so it’s unclear exactly how damaging the breach will be for each one.
Previous to regaining full access to Canvas Tyler ISDs sent this message to families:
“We want to make you aware that Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, Tyler ISD’s learning management system, is currently responding to a cybersecurity incident affecting Canvas clients nationwide.
At this time, Tyler ISD is actively monitoring the situation to assess any potential impact. Like numerous school districts and universities across the country, we are currently locked out of the system while Instructure works through its response process.
Instructure has not yet provided district-specific details regarding the scope of the incident. While the investigation remains ongoing, district leadership is reviewing any recommended next steps or mitigation measures as additional information becomes available. We are being diligent in our response and are working closely with our technology teams to monitor updates.
We understand this situation may create challenges, including possible issues with accessing or turning in assignments. We appreciate the patience and flexibility of both our staff and families as we navigate this situation together.
At this time, we are waiting for additional guidance from Instructure and will share verified updates as soon as we receive them.
Thank you for your continued partnership, support, and understanding.”
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