Princeton Canvas operational again after data breach-related outage

Princeton University’s Canvas learning platform experienced a major outage on Thursday, May 7, 2026, after the cybercriminal group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for hacking Instructure, the company behind the platform. The breach affected thousands of educational institutions worldwide, including Princeton, where both the web and mobile app became inaccessible by 3:30 p.m., just before final exams began. ShinyHunters issued a threat to release data by May 13 unless universities paid a settlement, though the site later displayed a generic ‘scheduled maintenance’ message. The hackers previously announced on Sunday that they had breached Instructure, claiming to have accessed data from nearly 9,000 schools and 275 million individuals. Princeton’s Office of Information Technology confirmed the breach may have exposed names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and Canvas messages, but stated passwords and financial information were not involved. As a precaution, Dean of the College Michael Gordin had earlier instructed faculty to download their Canvas gradebooks. By late Thursday night, Princeton’s Canvas platform was restored and operational, with a TigerAlert from Gordin at 9:25 p.m. confirming exams would proceed as planned. Faculty were advised to provide materials to students through alternative means until full access was restored. The university’s IT team continues to monitor the situation and will provide updates on its official website. ShinyHunters had listed Princeton among affected institutions in its breach announcement, accusing Instructure of failing to negotiate despite applying ‘security patches.’ The group’s threat followed a pattern of targeting higher education vendors, raising concerns about data security in academic settings. No further comment was provided by Princeton’s spokesperson in time for publication.