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  "path": "/education/2026/05/08/university-of-illinois-finals-postponed-canvas-schools-cyberattack-hacked",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-08T14:08:34.524Z",
  "site": "https://www.wbez.org",
  "textContent": "<p>Many Illinois colleges and schools are scrambling after the online learning platform Canvas went offline Thursday following a cyberattack on its parent company.</p><p>The shutdown forced the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to postpone all final exams and assignments scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, leaders told students in a message sent Thursday night.</p><p>Thousands of K-12 school districts and colleges use Canvas nationwide, including U of I and Northwestern University, to manage classes, post assignments and communicate with students.</p><p>Infrastructure, which runs Canvas, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://status.instructure.com/incidents/9wm4knj2r64z\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>said last week</u></a> that it had experienced a “cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor” that exposed users’ names, email addresses and student ID numbers, as well as internal messages.</p><p>A hacking group known as ShinyHunters <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/education/canvas-hacked-down-data-breach.html\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>claimed responsibility for the data breach</u></a>, according to reporting by the New York Times, and is threatening to release “billions of private messages among students and teachers” if Infrastructure doesn’t meet its ransom demands.</p><p>Northwestern University <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://northwesternuniversity.statuspage.io/incidents/wfythtrjf4lm\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>said Canvas remained offline</u></a> as of Friday morning and <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.it.northwestern.edu/about/news-events/2026/keep-teaching-without-canvas.html\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>provided suggestions</u></a> for professors to stay in touch with students and accept student work while it’s down.</p><p>U of I officials urged students not to open Canvas or click on any links if they saw a message from the platform related to the cyberattack because they could contain malware or be otherwise compromised. John Coleman, the university’s provost, told students that U of I was talking with other colleges about next steps and acknowledged the situation had added “stress and uncertainty” to the end of the academic year.</p><p>Cybersecurity incidents are common in schools, according to research conducted by the nonprofit RAND Corporation.</p><p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3930-6.html\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>In 2024, about 60% of K-12 principals said</u></a> on a nationally representative survey that their school had experienced at least one cybersecurity incident in the previous two school years, mostly compromised emails and phishing attacks.</p><p>But 14% percent said they experienced a data breach and 10% said they experienced a ransomware attack, which can be especially disruptive if hackers demand payment for the release of schools’ data.</p>",
  "title": "Popular learning tool Canvas offline after hack, leading U of I to postpone finals, schools to scramble",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-08T14:08:34.524Z"
}