James Madison University was one of thousands of schools caught up in a massive nationwide data breach with hackers infiltrating Canvas, a cloud-based digital hub for classrooms ranging from elementary school through college.
“JMU was recently impacted by a widespread service disruption affecting Canvas, a learning management platform used by thousands of institutions globally,” JMU officials said in a statement released to the Daily News-Record. “JMU has been actively monitoring the situation and communicating with our campus community since the disruption began.”
Personal information of students was compromised, and the timing of the breach affected the exam schedules of many students, but James Madison University was able to make its Canvas platforms operational again by Friday afternoon, potentially minimizing the effect on the rest of the semester.
“As of May 8, Canvas has been restored and is fully operational for our JMU faculty, staff and students,” the statement continued. “University faculty are working closely with students to address any impacts to students’ final exams, including rescheduling as needed. JMU takes the security of its systems and the integrity of its academic environment seriously and will continue to closely monitor the situation.”
Canvas boasts more than 30 million users across 8,000 institutions. JMU was among several notable large public universities as well as several Ivy League and other prestigious private schools caught up in the breach.
Canvas is owned and operated by the parent company Infrastructure. The group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the hack and extortion attempt.
ShinyHunters publicly released samples of the information it stole while asking for ransom. The samples did not come from JMU or any other local schools, but data released included messages, names, email addresses, and some phone numbers.
In an email sent out to JMU students and employees, the university warned Canvas users to remain vigilant in self-defense against hacking attempts and also provided information for rescheduling exams that were affected by the breach.
“As a precaution following any third-party platform disruption, we encourage users to remain vigilant regarding phishing attempts, and avoid clicking unknown links or unrecognized file downloads from Canvas,” the email read. “The official make-up day for exams missed Friday morning will be Wed., May 13. Students with a rescheduled exam should communicate directly with their instructional faculty member with individual questions or confirmation on the rescheduled exam time.”
The university also assured students it continued to work to provide online safety, particularly during a critical time in the academic calendar.
“We recognize this disruption came at a critical time, and we appreciate the patience and understanding of our JMU campus community during Canvas’ global outage,” the email continued. “JMU IT will continue to monitor the Canvas performance to ensure a stable experience for our campus. Additional information specific to the JMU community will be shared directly by email and posted online.”