Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

Post by master-lincoln » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:30 AM UTC

matsemann wrote: post #410

p-e-w wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what surprises me the most is that it’s even legal for schools to outsource the core of what they do to some random tech company. Either way, they were under no obligation to adopt this garbage technology regardless of whether it’s available, so this is 110% on them.

The alternative would be that each school develop their own platform for this, which also isn't very good use of their time and money? Edit: No idea why this was down voted so much. I'm not defending Canvas, just wondering what the alternative would be.

Post by Jaxan » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:39 AM UTC

royal__ wrote: post #257

kelnos wrote: post #141

A friend who teaches at MIT said they were hit by this. I found it ironic and a little sad that a place like MIT doesn't have an IT staff that can maintain their own on-prem solutions for things like this. But it turns out that MIT used to have their own homegrown system, and recently switched to Canvas. Bet they're regretting that now. The build vs. buy decision seems to have swung very hard toward buy in the last d…

Homegrown systems are expensive to maintain and usually still fail to match up to the commercial options available at this point. LMS's are also just really complicated pieces of software. I worked on my university's own version as an undergrad.

Post by 0123456789ABCDE » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:41 AM UTC

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…

Post by mold_aid » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:44 AM UTC

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?

Post by grey-area » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:48 AM UTC

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.