By Zoila Palma: A major international cyber attack disrupted universities and schools across the United States, Canada, and Australia this week, causing widespread confusion during the critical end-of-year academic period.
The attack targeted the academic software Canvas, a platform used by thousands of educational institutions worldwide. The hacking group ShinyHunters reportedly claimed responsibility for the breach, BBC reports.
Canvas owner Instructure said late Thursday that the platform was “available for most users,” although some institutions continued reporting outages on Friday.
The cyber attack affected an estimated 9,000 schools and universities globally, interrupting coursework, examinations, and online submissions for students and staff.
In Australia, the University of Sydney informed students that Canvas remained unavailable and warned them not to attempt to log in. The university stated it was among thousands of institutions impacted by the outage and was awaiting further guidance from Instructure. Officials acknowledged that the disruption came at a critical point in the semester and affected both coursework and examinations.
Several North American universities also faced major disruptions. Penn State University told students that no one had access to Canvas and warned that a resolution was unlikely within 24 hours, leading to the cancellation of some exams.
The University of British Columbia in Vancouver said the outage resulted from a cyber breach involving Instructure and advised students to log out immediately. The University of Toronto also confirmed it was affected.
In the United States, students at the University of California Los Angeles experienced difficulties submitting assignments through Canvas, while the University of Chicago temporarily disabled its Canvas page after reports that it had been targeted.
The student-run newspaper, The Chicago Maroon, shared a screenshot of a message allegedly from ShinyHunters requesting the university contact the group privately “to negotiate a settlement” and avoid the release of data.
Cybersecurity experts said screenshots indicated the threats began on Sunday, with deadlines set for Thursday and May 12.
The post International News: Cyber-attacks disrupt universities in U.S., Canada and Australia appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
By Zoila Palma: A major international cyber attack disrupted universities and schools across the United States, Canada, and Australia this week, causing widespread confusion during the critical end-of-year academic period. The attack targeted the academic software Canvas, a platform used by thousands of educational institutions worldwide. The hacking group ShinyHunters reportedly claimed responsibility for the
The post International News: Cyber-attacks disrupt universities in U.S., Canada and Australia appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
