The cybercriminal hacking and extortion group ShinyHunters breached Instructure and claims to have the personal information of 275 million people across nearly 9,000 schools around the world — and Northwest is affected.
Instructure — a leading educational technology company — owns Canvas, which is a learning management system used by 41% of the nation’s higher education institutions, according to Inside Higher Ed. Northwest utilizes Canvas, and each student and educator must use it to access and manage all course work.
ShinyHunters wrote a ransom letter to Instructure, demanding to be paid. The group threatened to leak “several billions of private messages” by May 6 if Instructure didn’t cooperate.
As of May 7, no information appears to have been leaked; however, Canvas has been inaccessible for much of the afternoon. The note, “Canvas is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance,” or various other error messages, appear on the screens of anyone who attempts to access the site.
This shutdown is widespread, affecting education institutions across the country. Before the note about maintenance appeared, multiple students at Iowa universities reported seeing a message from ShinyHunters when they tried to access Canvas, according to KCCI. The message threatens to leak all information by the end of the day May 12 if there is no cooperation.
The Missourian reached out to Northwest’s Office of the Provost May 6 to gain information on how this hack may impact the University. Administrative Specialist Diane Hargrave said a Northwest official will follow up soon to provide insight.
“Our staff are working on this and will be sending out a communication in the near future,” Hargrave said in an email to the Missourian.
