{"id":9359,"date":"2026-05-11T20:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/9359\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T20:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:51:15","slug":"students-criticise-adelaide-universitys-communication-over-canvas-cybersecurity-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/9359\/","title":{"rendered":"Students criticise Adelaide University’s communication over Canvas cybersecurity breach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide University says access to the cloud-based learning platform Canvas is back online after a data breach last week, but some students have criticised the institution’s communication about the incident.<\/p>\n

Adelaide University and Flinders University were among thousands of educational institutions internationally that were left scrambling last week after online hacking group ShinyHunters breached the platform.<\/p>\n

The system was taken down for many institutions around the country<\/a>, preventing students from accessing course information and assessments.<\/p>\n

While Adelaide University said access to Canvas had been restored by 5pm yesterday, Flinders University was expecting to be “fully operational” this morning.<\/p>\n

Adelaide University students criticised the institution’s communication about the incident, which follows difficulties with the university’s merger between the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Adelaide University student Ethan Brown says he learned about the breach through a friend and online articles. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)<\/p>\n

Second-year mechanical engineering student Ethan Brown said it had been difficult to work out what happened until the university advised about the breach.<\/p>\n

“It did take me a little while to actually find out [what happened] because I didn’t find out directly from the uni, I just heard about it from a friend and from articles online,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said it was “a little concerning” that the breach occurred so soon after issues created by the university merger.<\/p>\n

“It is an unfortunate coincidence for them to happen so close together,” he said<\/p>\n

“I think for people who have already been affected by the merger, it’s a bit of a shock to have so many technical difficulties so quickly in the year.”<\/p>\n

Second-year student Shannon Schmidt, who is studying a double degree in international relations and arts, said the incident was “not ideal” and had “messed with a lot of things to do with my course material and submissions”.<\/p>\n

Major data breach sees student details compromised<\/a><\/p>\n

Education institutions around the country are scrambling to respond to a global data breach that’s affected Australian universities, TAFE and state schools in Queensland.<\/p>\n

He also questioned why so many universities relied on the same third-party provider, which made them “at risk of such incidents”.<\/p>\n

“I reckon all unis that have been affected should tighten security, if this wasn’t a wake-up call, then I don’t know what will be,” he said.<\/p>\n

His friend, linguistics student Bailey Fry, said many students, who had a test on Friday, were “very stressed” by the impact of the outage.<\/p>\n

“We got one email saying there had been a security breach, and then it just kind of went down and no-one really knew what was happening,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s just been really poorly managed \u2026 and everyone is just kind of figuring out things from the merger, this just kind of adds to it.<\/p>\n

“It’s really disappointing \u2026 we deserve and expect a bit better.”<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Gemma Vu and Taylor Schwartz say the outage was disruptive. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)<\/p>\n

Similarly, Bachelor of Music Theatre students Gemma Vu and Taylor Schwartz said the Canvas outage had caused “confusion” among students.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a massive disruption,” Ms Schwartz said.<\/p>\n

She said students had “worked out ourselves” what had occurred, and they had expected more communication from Adelaide University.<\/p>\n

But she said it was “hard to know what more they can do”.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure they’re trying their best,” she said.<\/p>\n

Almost 9,000 institutions worldwide use the Canvas learning management system developed by Instructure, a company based in Salt Lake City, in the US.<\/p>\n

In some cases, users of the platform were greeted with a message demanding a ransom.<\/p>\n

Canvas is a digital hub used by schools and universities for submitting assignments, taking exams, checking grades and communication between teachers and students.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Adelaide University was created from a merger between the University of Adelaide and University of South Australia. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)<\/p>\n

Access to Canvas for both staff and students at Adelaide University was suspended on Friday, May 8.<\/p>\n

In emails seen by the ABC, the university said it had been advised that “an unauthorised third party had accessed some data associated with Adelaide University’s Canvas”, and that the institution’s cyber security team was “actively monitoring the situation and working with Canvas to determine the exact nature of the data affected”.<\/p>\n

It also warned staff and students that the data accessed included “some personal information”.<\/p>\n

“However, there is no indication that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers or financial information have been compromised” the university said.<\/p>\n

Adelaide University did not respond to questions from the ABC, but in a statement posted to its website yesterday afternoon, the university said “temporary adjustments”, including assessment extensions, had been put in place “to ensure fairness for all students”.<\/p>\n

“We understand how disruptive this global cybersecurity incident has been for staff and students, particularly during assessment periods, and we thank our community for their understanding,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“The safety of our community has been our number one priority as we have continued to work with Canvas and our Australian Government agencies to reach a resolution.”<\/p>\n

The university also urged students to “please remain alert to phishing or suspicious communications”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Canvas is a learning management software used by educational facilities across the world. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Flinders University said Canvas access was being restored and expected to be “fully operational” by today after it alerted students to the outage on May 5.<\/p>\n

“Our priority throughout this incident has been ensuring our students can continue their learning and are not disadvantaged by the outage,” a Flinders University spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“We have taken a careful and measured approach to restoring access, including thorough testing and assurance activities, and will continue to closely monitor Canvas as services return.”<\/p>\n

Students who were unable to submit work due to the outage were granted extensions.<\/p>\n

“Face-to-face teaching has continued across the University, and we are working closely with staff and students as online learning resumes,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide University says access to the cloud-based learning platform Canvas is back online after a data breach last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[395,10616,10615,10622,10620,10617,10619,10618,2740,10621,9757],"class_list":{"0":"post-9359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-adelaide","8":"tag-adelaide","9":"tag-adelaide-university","10":"tag-canvas","11":"tag-communication","12":"tag-data-breach","13":"tag-flinders-university","14":"tag-hacking","15":"tag-online-learning","16":"tag-platform","17":"tag-shinyhunters","18":"tag-students"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}