tech
Cyber-attack on system widely used in US education disrupts final exams
Nationwide Canvas outage left students and faculty ‘dead in the water’ and rushing to rearrange end of academic year
TL;DR
- The Canvas learning management system experienced an outage due to a cyber-attack, impacting thousands of schools and universities in the US.
- Students were unable to access course materials for final exams, leading to panic and requiring schools to make adjustments.
- The hacking group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack, reportedly affecting nearly 9,000 schools worldwide and accessing billions of records.
- Schools are implementing workarounds, and some, like the University of Texas at San Antonio, have postponed final exams.
- This incident highlights the education sector's dependence on technology and its vulnerability to cyber threats.