Cyberattack on Canvas platform disrupts finals for Bay Area students

The Brief

  • Educational software platform Canvas is back online after a cyberattack disrupted access for schools and colleges nationwide during final exam week.
  • Instructure, Canvas’ parent company, says compromised data included email addresses, student ID numbers and messages between users.
  • The company says passwords, financial information, Social Security numbers and dates of birth were not exposed in the breach.

TAMPA, Fla. A cyberattack targeting one of the nation’s most widely used education platforms caused disruptions for millions of students and teachers this week, including many across the Bay Area.

The backstory:

Canvas, an educational software platform used by thousands of schools and colleges nationwide, experienced a major outage Thursday after hackers targeted its parent company, Instructure.

The platform is used by more than 8,000 colleges, universities and K-12 schools for coursework, assignments, grades and communication between students and teachers.

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