A large number of universities and schools are affected by an international cyber-attack.
Amidst the high-stakes end-of-year
season, a cyber-attack caused panic, uncertainty, and significant interruptions
at a number of US, Canadian, and Australian institutions and schools.
The academic program Canvas, which is utilized by thousands of schools and
universities, went offline this week due to an attack that was attributed to
the hacker collective Shiny Hunters.
Canvas was "available for most
users" by late Thursday, according to a website update from the firm that
controls it, in structure. However, some universities continued to report
problems on Friday.
An estimated 9,000 universities and schools worldwide were impacted by the cyber-attacks.
In order to give impacted students
time to make up any lost work, Mississippi State University stated that it will
be delaying Friday's final exams.
The BBC students were almost finishing a 2,900-word test essay when a ransom
note appeared on their screens, according to Aubrey Palmer, a university
student studying meteorology.
It said, "Shiny Hunters has breached Instructure (again)."
It threatened to make the stolen data public unless Canvas or the impacted
colleges paid a bitcoin ransom.
"My knee jerk reaction was that
I'd been hacked myself, because that's what it looked like," Palmer
replied. "But then I actually read the ransom note and saw it was Canvas
that had been hacked."
Palmer claimed that the message was in the possession of the professor and
numerous other students, and that everyone in the room was staring around in
bewilderment.
It wasn't obvious at first if their
work had been saved.
Students soon became frustrated; according to Palmer, they were "so angry
at the idea of having to redo" their tests.
Since then, the university has responded to what it called a "nationwide
security incident" by sending out email updates to students, rescheduling
tests, and encouraging them to disregard questionable messages.
On Friday, the University of Sydney
informed students that "Canvas was unavailable" and advised them not
to try to log in.
"We are one of approximately
9000 institutions around the world that are impacted by this outage, and we are
still waiting for advice from Instructure," the college posted on its
website.
The university acknowledged "how disruptive this is at a critical time in
the semester" and stated that the outage had an impact on students'
schoolwork and exams.
Exams scheduled after 12:00 local time (18:00 GMT) were canceled, according to
a statement released by Idaho State University on Thursday.
In a statement sent to students on Thursday,
Penn State University stated that "no one has access" to Canvas and
that "within the next 24 hours" a "resolution" was
doubtful. Exams that were supposed to take place on Thursday and Friday were
canceled by the university.
The University of British Columbia in Vancouver told students in an update on
Thursday night that Canvas was "unavailable due to a cyber-breach of its
parent company Instructure" and recommended them to log out right away.
The University of Toronto stated that "multiple universities were
affected" and that it was also touched by the breach.
The University of Chicago in
Illinois briefly suspended its Canvas page following claims that it was
targeted, and students at the University of California Los Angeles found it
difficult to turn in assignments online using the Canvas platform.
The university-run publication, the
Chicago Maroon, shared a screenshot of a message from Shiny Hunters that seemed
to be requesting a ransom.
The message urged the university to avoid "the release of their data"
and to speak with the hacking organization in secret "to negotiate a
settlement."
Jacques Abou-Rizk, a master's student at Northwestern campus, claimed to have
gotten the same message after clicking on a link in an email that seemed to be
from a campus administrator.
"I didn't know what was
happening," recalled Abou-Rizk. "It's a scary message to
receive."
According to him, the institution addressed the matter on Thursday by stating
that Northwestern was "monitoring an issue" in a generic email that
was viewed by the BBC.
The email claimed that other IT infrastructure had not been impacted and that
the university had no idea when Canvas will be restored.
On Friday, Abou-Rizk said that he was still unable to access Canvas and that
the institution had not contacted him since.
"There's definitely anxiety
surrounding not only being able to complete my work and access the sites that I
need access to on Canvas," Abou-Rizk stated. "But also just not
knowing exactly what the threat is and how it might affect me."I'm afraid
because I have no idea what data will be made public."
Northwestern University has been contacted by the BBC for comment.
ShinyHunters has already been connected to a number of high-profile
cyberattacks, including a significant and financially detrimental hack on
Jaguar Land Rover last year.
Luke Connolly, a threat analyst with
the cyber security company Emisoft, told the Associated Press that the groups
targeted attacks started on Sunday and had deadlines set for Thursday and May
12.
He claimed that talks about extortion payments might still be going on.
What the gang intends to do with the data it says it captured during the most
recent attack was not disclosed.
Thursday's cyber-attacks coincided
with a letter from Chuck Schumer, the senior Democrat in the US Senate, to the
Trump administration pleading for increased protection against cyber-threats in
the era of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence.
Schumer said, "Before Americans are hit with outages, disruptions, and
attacks that could put lives and livelihoods at risk," the Department of
Homeland Security, which aids in preventing cyber-attacks, "must
immediately help states and localities."
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