Harvard students lost access to Canvas on Thursday afternoon after the cybercriminal group ShinyHunters listed the University among thousands of schools allegedly affected by a breach of Instructure, Canvas’ parent company.
Canvas, which Harvard uses to host course websites, assignments, reading, and messages between students and instructors, remained accessible to Harvard affiliates through at least 2 p.m. Thursday.
Around 3:30 p.m., the site began redirecting to a message from ShinyHunters, a notorious cybercriminal group that claimed it had “breached Instructure†and posted a list of affected schools.
By around 4:20 p.m, the site had been updated to display a message that read, “Canvas is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Check back soon.â€
Both the Canvas mobile app and the web platform were inaccessible to Harvard users as of 4:30 p.m.
The message claimed the group had breached Instructure “again†and accused the company of ignoring its outreach by issuing small “security patches.†It urged schools included on the affected list to consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact the group privately to negotiate a settlement before the end of the day on May 12 — or else risk their data being leaked.
It is unclear what information tied to Harvard affiliates was included in the alleged breach.
Harvard University Information Technology spokesperson Tim Bailey wrote in a statement that the University is “aware that the Canvas platform is currently unavailable due to a cyber incident.â€
Bailey said that HUIT is “actively investigating†the breach and will update its status page with any new information.
ShinyHunters first announced a breach of Instructure Sunday, claiming to have stolen data — including billions of private messages containing “personal conversations†— from 275 million affiliates across 9,000 schools.
At the time, the group gave Instructure and affected schools a May 6 deadline to respond to their demands.
Bailey did not immediately confirm whether Harvard was included in the initial list, but the University was included on a document released by ShinyHunters of affected schools.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
—Staff writer Sebastian B. Connolly can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at sbc.23. Follow him on X @SebastianC4784.
—Staff writer Summer E. Rose can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ser.85. Follow her on X @summerellenrose.
