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Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

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Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#381

Post by flexagoon »

dumbfounder wrote: post #218
blahedo wrote: post #176

Perspective from the trenches: I teach at a university that uses Canvas. We are in our final exams period right now. We got our first email (from Academic Affairs) notifying us that it was down at 5:17pm EDT this afternoon, with little info; followup emails were sent at 6:24 and 6:57 with more info, but mostly about how we would be compensating for it and not about what actually was going on (other than, "nationwide…

Maybe a hybrid approach. Scramble to create a final exam/project and give them the option to do pass/fail or a real grade, their choice. And then wish for the death of saas and a day where you can deploy your own software you can control and modify as you need.

> day where you can deploy your own software you can control and modify as you need.

Canvas is mostly FOSS

https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#382

Post by throawayonthe »

dotancohen wrote: post #336
gucci-on-fleek wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used Canvas before, but all the LMSes that I've used allow students to enable emails whenever anything is updated, including when grades are posted. This is off by default because it's often 10+ emails a day, because many teachers post notes once a day, and with 5 classes, that adds up pretty quick. I personally have it enabled because it's pretty manageable with some custom Outlook rules, but setting this…

> setting this up is well beyond the capabilities of most students. Setting up custom email filters is beyond the capabilities of most students? What are they learning? Where will they be qualified to work?

it's MS software, i think it's inanely difficult

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#383

Post by setopt »

blahedo wrote: post #176

Perspective from the trenches: I teach at a university that uses Canvas. We are in our final exams period right now. We got our first email (from Academic Affairs) notifying us that it was down at 5:17pm EDT this afternoon, with little info; followup emails were sent at 6:24 and 6:57 with more info, but mostly about how we would be compensating for it and not about what actually was going on (other than, "nationwide…

Just to add one more data point, we also use Canvas at my university. The deadline for submitting who are eligible (i.e. passed compulsory assignments and labs) to take the exam was yesterday, and I couldn’t meet that deadline because Canvas went down. I usually do corrections offline so I have backups of my own evaluations, but these are courses with many teachers and many TAs, so Canvas is the way we sync our assessments.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#384

Post by yread »

copperx wrote: post #312
blahedo wrote: post #176

Perspective from the trenches: I teach at a university that uses Canvas. We are in our final exams period right now. We got our first email (from Academic Affairs) notifying us that it was down at 5:17pm EDT this afternoon, with little info; followup emails were sent at 6:24 and 6:57 with more info, but mostly about how we would be compensating for it and not about what actually was going on (other than, "nationwide…

I don't understand what's the panic and doomerism about. Any competent IT team has backups and will be up and running as they go back to a state before the breach. This is HN. I'm disappointed that everyone is talking about losing grades and going back to pen and paper. I don't see how that could happen in 2026. And from the hacker's message itself, it's clear they want money in exchange for not releasing private inf…

Schools don't have competent IT teams.

Here in the Netherlands a data center's power source (not even the machines) burnt down, data center is offline and University of Utrecht, one of the biggest universities here, is closed. Access passes don't work, work from home environment doesn't work, student information system is down, system for grading doesn't work. No failover for any of them (or maybe it was in the same DC?)

https://nos.nl/artikel/2613485-storingen-in-hele-land-door-b...

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#385

Post by chrisjj »

pants2 wrote: post #113
myrandomcomment wrote: post #89

1. It should be illegal for any company to pay ransomware attacks. Period. No pay out ever. 2. The penalty for being the attacker should be linked to the system they violated. If you do this to a hospital and someone dies you are life in prison / chair. The minimum sentence should be so painful that it deters the attack. No this will not stop this and companies need to be held accountable for their lack of security i…

When will countries start treating cyberattacks as an act of war? If the North Korean military came to America and robbed fort Knox of $200M in gold there would be retribution. But hack an American company for the same amount and the feds do nothing.

> When will countries start treating cyberattacks as an act of war?

When appropriate. I.e. never.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#386

Post by flexagoon »

sayamqazi wrote: post #379
prodigycorp wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so we treat it as an act of war. Now what? Attack North Korea? Great, the entire city of Seoul gets shelled within five minutes of your attack and hundreds of thousands of innocent people die. It's very easy to play with lives that aren't yours.

You would be surprised how many people naively think "Why doesn't my country just open a war on X country and this Y problem will be solved forever" in their head they think war is just a flurry of bombardments and the other side (not theirs) is just destroyed to rubble and their country will have only minimal losses

Many country leaders also clearly think the same

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#387

Post by chrisjj »

scheme271 wrote: post #118
Avicebron wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could also throw the CEOs of companies who don't properly secure their infrastructure and pay their security engineers enough in jail. A little justice on both ends.

Uh, who determines that the infrastructure wasn't properly secured? Who is willing to risk prison because some intern accidentally committed an API key or made a dumb mistake. Conversely, what's the chances that no one actually gets prosecuted regardless of how sloppy their security practices are?

> Uh, who determines that the infrastructure wasn't properly secured?

ShinyHackers, obviously.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#388

Post by Kiro »

DaSHacka wrote: post #292
strix_varius wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any internal data on where students are going instead?

You honestly don't wanna know If my peers are any indication, a whole lot of TikTok, Reels, Twitter, Discord, and other such mind-numbing platforms. The types of platforms I would consider 'substantive' (or, at least, more substantive than those platforms) are definitely on the way out. The few times friends have seen me browsing Hacker News or a certain Mongolian basket weaving form, the first thing they comment on…

How is Discord mind-numbing?

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#389

Post by setopt »

dotancohen wrote: post #336
gucci-on-fleek wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used Canvas before, but all the LMSes that I've used allow students to enable emails whenever anything is updated, including when grades are posted. This is off by default because it's often 10+ emails a day, because many teachers post notes once a day, and with 5 classes, that adds up pretty quick. I personally have it enabled because it's pretty manageable with some custom Outlook rules, but setting this…

> setting this up is well beyond the capabilities of most students. Setting up custom email filters is beyond the capabilities of most students? What are they learning? Where will they be qualified to work?

In my experience, it’s hard enough to make students check their school email in the first place. Let alone filter it.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#390

Post by alpineman »

BooneJS wrote: post #150

My kids are in the middle of their finals week. What a mess. Universities know nothing, Canvas claims to be in a "scheduled maintenance", and one Prof claims to "not have any copies of material offline" which seems pretty negligent. Sounds like one section of a popular class will be doing paper exams while other sections had Canvas-based "half points for 2nd attempt"-type exams earlier today. How soon before names &…

Crazy that kids data are getting leaked before they even had a chance to properly understand the consequences and consent to it being used
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