Cyberattack hits Canvas affecting colleges in NJ and nationwide
The hacker group Shiny Hunters launched a cyberattack on May 7, disrupting Canvas for 9,000 schools nationwide, including NJ universities like Rutgers and Princeton, forcing delays in exams and warnings about phishing scams. The group demanded schools negotiate a settlement by May 12 or face data leaks, affecting millions of students during finals week.
A cyberattack on the educational platform Canvas on May 7 left 9,000 schools across the U.S. unable to access student grades, classes, and exam submissions. The hacker group Shiny Hunters claimed responsibility, posting online that they breached Instructure, the company behind Canvas, after being ignored. They demanded schools contact them via TOX by May 12 to negotiate a settlement or risk having their data leaked. The disruption forced Baylor University in Texas to delay final exams on May 8, while New Jersey schools like Rutgers, Princeton, Montclair State University, and Union College of Union County also faced outages. Rutgers confirmed students struggled with exams and project submissions, while Princeton warned against phishing messages claiming to resolve Canvas issues. Shiny Hunters’ message accused Instructure of ignoring previous contact attempts, threatening to release data if no settlement was reached. Princeton advised students to avoid unverified third-party sites for Canvas-related communications and never share passwords or personal details. Montclair State and Union College reported no timeline for Canvas’ return, leaving students and faculty without access to critical course materials. The attack impacted major universities nationwide, including Columbia, Harvard, Boston College, Penn State, Oklahoma, Mississippi State, and Kentucky. Schools urged students to remain vigilant against scams while awaiting updates on the outage’s resolution.
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