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A cybercriminal group known as ShinyHunters breached Instructure’s Canvas learning-management system in late April and again in early May, exploiting its Free‑For‑Teacher feature to access and publish student and staff records.
The group claimed it had stolen terabytes of data from roughly 8,000–9,000 institutions and set a ransom deadline for public release; reported figures vary and remain unverified.
Instructure disclosed unauthorized activity detected April 29, took Canvas offline to contain the incident and temporarily suspended Free‑For‑Teacher accounts.
The platform was restored for most users within days, though some services remained in maintenance mode while external forensics and U.S. federal investigators — including the FBI and CISA — were notified.
Affected data reportedly includes names, email addresses, student ID numbers and private messages between users; the company said it found no evidence of exposed passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers or financial information.
The disruption hit thousands of schools during U.S. finals week, forcing exam delays and alternative submission arrangements as institutions and vendors assess exposure and response.







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