HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Broward County Public Schools and Florida International University are among the thousands of school systems and universities that use Canvas in their classrooms across the country.
It’s a cloud-based digital hub, and now, the victim of a cyber attack.
More than 8,000 institutions are Canvas customers, including ivy leagues like Georgetown, Harvard and Columbia universities.
Many of the affected schools and universities reported a ransom note on the homepage of their Canvas sites.
The hacking group Shinyhunters has claimed responsibility and is threatening to leak more data unless contacted by next Tuesday.
Instructure, which is the parent company of Canvas, initially said the platform was in “maintenance mode” and that it was investigating the issue.
The company later confirmed that Canvas is back online for its 30 million active users.
Broward County Public Schools confirmed Canvas access was being temporarily blocked districtwide to help protect its systems and data, warning students and staff not to log in from personal devices or click suspicious Canvas links or messages.
“What’s gonna happen to my grades? What’s gonna happen to my teachers? What are we gonna do about the stuff we’re going to do in class today?” South Broward High School student Jose Bonilla wondered Friday morning. “Like I had some projects coming up to do. And since Canvas got hacked, I’m not sure what we’re gonna do today.”
FIU also blocked Canvas access, saying they want to “verify the integrity and security of the platform” first.
Mike Asencio, cyber policy director at FIU, said disruptions like this are increasingly common in large-scale digital systems.
“It’s a bit of a nuisance when you’re used to having everything easy access,” Asencio said, “but it’s not something we can’t get over. The bigger concern is making sure users don’t fall for secondary scams or phishing attempts that often follow incidents like this.”
The university’s cybersecurity team also warned of potential phishing attempts offering to recover access to Canvas data.
Canvas is used for communication between teachers and students, posting and submitting assignments and even major tests are done through the online platform.
A spokesperson for Miami-Dade County Public Schools said in a statement that “While a limited number of virtual students use the platform for specific coursework, access to the site has been proactively blocked.”
Howard Hepburn, superintendent of Broward County Public Schools, said the district is working to minimize disruption as schools near the end of the academic year.
“Cybersecurity today is a big issue, just be careful what you click on. We continue to remind our students and our staff to do the same as well,” he said. “we have found no evidence that there has been any breach of student information.”
Shinyhunters has also claimed responsibility for another data breach reported in schools and universities earlier this month.
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