Canvas LMS hacked, students locked out during finals
Canvas, the learning management system used by thousands of schools including Harvard, UC Berkeley and Rutgers, was hacked Thursday, locking students and instructors out of course pages, grades and quizzes during finals week. Students who tried to access exams or study materials encountered a hacker message that replaced course content, and Canvas posted a service outage notice saying the software was unavailable. Universities scrambled to evaluate next steps and arrange alternative exam or grading plans as scheduled finals and grade access were disrupted. The breach exposes vulnerability in centralized education infrastructure and could affect graduation timelines, academic integrity and emergency backup procedures.
Idk if y’all are following the Canvas hack story, but apparently whoever hacked it is holding each uni’s access to canvas for ransom. Grades are due for graduation and no one can log on. 😬
Jen Mercieca47Props to the hackers for kairos. 😬
Whorfin31Gee maybe letting for-profit tech firms take over every function in universities was a bad idea?
Dan Lawson 26I can give an A to each of my students if that helps
We do not stan15Worst part is this isn't the first time Shiny Hunters has hacked the company. They never properly fixed the backdoor, allegedly.
Phil Garnock-Jones11I recommend getting a big *sheet* of paper, *spreading* it out on a table, and writing the names and grades on it with a pencil. Presumably the papers are graded, so the information is available.
There was a time before Canvas and Blackboard. Things worked pretty well I think I'm headed back to that world.
Matthew Boedy5Schools starting to release statements this afternoon. Could be thousands
Ginger Snap and Cam 🖖4i am as concerned as hackers releasing Canvas messages, which could include sensitive/private communications about all manner of things.
Talos_XLIV3Yes, I saw reports hitting here earlier today sometime around noon-ish. I had an opportunity at the start of 2026 to have/use Canvas on my laptop for distance learning and said, "No thanks. Pass." Our interconnectedness is truly a double-edged sword and I, for one, have grown quite wary of it.
Middle Manager Mom ☕️2Yup. My son is a senior in the middle of midterms. 🫠
If the end of the semester Canvas hack has taught us anything, it's that universities need to double down on giving everything to borderline monopoly tech run by megalomaniac private equity dbags.
Keith Ng10Goodbye 40% of budget going to Canvas! Hello 35% of budget going to Canvas and 25% of budget going to Canvas Premium Protection Support!
Nolan Zugernat3It’s a big problem. On the other hand though, running your own system these days carries security risks that a lot of schools just don’t have the resources to handle. I’m OK with returning to paper.
Jackalope Proxy3Whenever Canvas comes back online again IT leadership at schools, colleges and universities need to request Instructure return ALL of their data and hold Instructure in breech of SLA commitments. Instructure and their private equity handlers should be put out of business.
Between LLMs, WiFi outages, and Canvas hacks, we gotta start running colleges like Battlestar Galactica. Everything unnetworked; fuck the Cylons
Andy Famiglietti11If department chairs were issued hard-wired phones that looked like WWII radio sets and were required to answer them "English Department Actual" we would never have trouble recruiting chair candidates again
Permission2BFancy3All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again!
