Students receive ransom messages amid learning system hack

Canvas is a learning management software used by educational facilities across the world. (ABC News) Some students and teachers at educational institutions have received a ransom message from a group claiming it had hacked cloud-based learning management system Canvas. Hundreds of thousands of students have been unable to access schoolwork or submit assessments as access to Canvas has been paused. Instructure has now reported Canvas is available for most users, but it remains unclear when the systems will be completely back online. Link copiedShareShare articleHundreds of thousands of students have been left unable to access schoolwork or submit assessments, with some receiving ransom messages following a global cybersecurity hack. On Thursday, universities, TAFEs and public schools in at least two states were left scrambling to respond to the global breach of the cloud-based Canvas learning management system, which was hacked on May 2. Almost 9,000 institutions worldwide are clients of the system developed by United States company Instructure, which is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Cybersecurity industry website BleepingComputer said notorious hacking group ShinyHunters had claimed responsibility for the breach. On Friday, some students and teachers attempting to log into Canvas were greeted with a message from ShinyHunters, seen by the ABC, claiming a second hack had taken place and demanding a ransom. The ransom message was received by students and teachers. (Supplied) "ShinyHunters has breached Instructure [again]," the statement read. "Instead of contacting us to resolve it, they ignored us and did some 'security patches'." The statement included exhortations for Instructure and educational institutions to contact ShinyHunters and "negotiate a settlement". Among providers confirmed to have been affected are state schools in Queensland and Tasmania, universities in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia and TAFE in Tasmania. QUT biomedical student Abriana Doherty says the data breach has impactedc her study. (ABC News) QUT student Abriana Doherty was going into exam block in her second year of biomedical science, and said the system outages were affecting her study. "I was supposed to go into class this morning and I was going to do some revision before going, and I just couldn't do anything, which was really frustrating," she said. She said her practical class still went ahead despite the software issues. QUT property economics student Ekansh Alla said he was unable to access Canvas. (ABC News) First-year property economics and business student Ekansh Alla said he needed to contact a lecturer because he had an assessment due on Friday afternoon. "I was trying to access [Canvas] this morning to check my lectures, submit some assignments, but it was down for maintenance," he said. "I heard it got hacked recently, so I don't know if it's to do with that. As of 9:21pm, May 7, local time (1:17pm, May 8, AEST) Instructure reported that Canvas was available for most users. It is unclear when the learning systems could be completely back online. Instructure has been contacted for comment. Education institutions around the country are scrambling to respond to a global data breach that's affected Australian universities, TAFE and state schools in Queensland. In a statement published to social media, National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness said it would take some time before the full impacts of the compromised data were understood. "My team is working closely with state and territory governments and education peak bodies to collectively address the impacts arising from this incident," she said. "Despite the disruption caused by this incident, I understand affected education institutions remain open. Institutions will contact students and staff directly if they experience any interruptions to service delivery as a result of the incident." She said her team was not aware of any personal identification documents or financial information being compromised. "As with any incident, Australians should not go searching for data on the dark web or engage with the threat actor — these actions only feed the business model of cybercriminals." The National Office of Cyber Security has been contacted for comment. Expand the cards below for more information about impacted states. Queensland Department of Education staff were advised in an email on Friday morning by Deputy Director-General of Digital Innovation Darrin Bond that the Canvas platform was unavailable and access to QLearn had been rescinded. The state's education minister John-Paul Langbroek said QLearn was shut down as a "preventative action". "That's something that people should also be reassured about, that it's important that we took that preventative action," he said. He stressed that the information obtained in the breach did not include financial information or passwords, and had not yet been leaked.

Students receive ransom messages amid learning system hack

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