Educational Platform Canvas Partially Restored After International Cyber Attack

Kathmandu. The popular educational platform Canvas, used by thousands of schools and universities worldwide, has been partially restored after being targeted by an international cyber attack.

This attack has created great confusion and hardship for students preparing for their annual exams. The Canvas system, built by the tech company Instructure, has been claimed to be disrupted by a hacking group called 'Shiny Hunters'.

Hackers have claimed to have stolen 3.5 terabytes of data from Canvas's system. This includes students' names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and private messages. The group has threatened to release all these confidential details if the ransom is not paid by May 12.

Instructure company stated on its website on Saturday that Canvas is now available for most users and no new problems have been observed. However, the company has not disclosed whether it has paid the ransom to the hackers.

Countries including the United States, Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, and the UK have been most affected by this cyber attack. According to Canvas, about 30 million people from approximately 9,000 institutions worldwide use this system.

Canada's University of Alberta has stated that although Canvas has been partially restored, it is yet to operate at full capacity. Similarly, the University of Sydney has informed that although the system has been restored, access for staff and students has not been opened until security checks are completed.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has stated that they are aware of this disruption in the educational system and that it has directly affected educational institutions and students across the country. It is especially analyzed that this hack has occurred at the worst possible time as it is currently exam season in the United States.

Prestigious universities such as Pennsylvania State, Harvard, Illinois, Columbia, and Georgetown have now been forced to extend or change exam deadlines. The University of Cambridge in the UK also temporarily shut down Canvas access on Friday.

The hacking group Shiny Hunters is a global cybercrime syndicate established in 2019. Previously, this group had also cyber-attacked the gaming industry giant Rockstar Games.

Hackers have claimed that the Instructure company did not even try to talk to them to stop the data leak and that their demands are not very large.