A recent cyberattack that took offline a learning management system used by colleges and universities nationwide exposes the growing cyber risk in the higher education sector.
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Hacking group ShinyHunters took credit for the recent data breach that affected the Instructure-owned Canvas learning management system, used by around 41% of colleges and universities in North America. The shutdown happened as colleges and universities were in the middle of finals.
Canvas came back online a day or two later, and in the end, Instructure paid the hackers an undisclosed amount for the return of the compromised data, which included information like usernames, email addresses, course names, enrollment information and messages.
“When you have something like Canvas and the way in which it has been deployed, both for everything from student data to payments [and] the core functioning of utilization, from an educational standpoint, there’s a real risk,” said Alex Niejelow, executive director of Hilco…
