For thousands of students trying to submit assignments, access exams or simply log in, the answer remained unclear late Tuesday: when exactly will Canvas be back online? Canvas by Instructure entered maintenance mode after a breach claim by ShinyHunters triggered widespread concern across schools and universities using the learning platform.
At the peak of the disruption, outage tracker reports showed more than 8,000 users experiencing problems. Hours later, over 1,200 users were still reporting issues. The outage quickly spiralled beyond a routine technical failure after screenshots circulated online showing an alleged message from the hacker group threatening schools with data leaks unless negotiations took place before May 12.
That escalation transformed what initially appeared to be maintenance downtime into a much larger cybersecurity crisis.
What ShinyHunters Claimed
According to screenshots widely shared online, the group claimed it had breached Instructure “again” and accused the company of ignoring previous contact attempts.
The alleged message warned schools appearing on an affected list to contact cyber advisory firms and negotiate privately to prevent the release of data.
“ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again),” the statement read in part, alongside threats of potential leaks tied to a May 12 deadline. The authenticity and scope of the claims have not been independently verified publicly by authorities.
However, the group itself is not unknown within cybersecurity circles. ShinyHunters has previously been linked to high-profile breaches involving major corporations and online platforms, including incidents connected to Tokopedia and other global organisations.
What Instructure Has Said So Far
Instructure acknowledged ongoing disruption but stopped short of publicly discussing the hacker claims directly on its status page. Instead, the company stated that “Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test are under maintenance” and that teams were “currently investigating this issue.”
As of Tuesday evening Mountain Daylight Time, the company had not provided a definitive timeline for full restoration. Still, the platform attempted to reassure users, saying services were expected to be “up soon” and that updates would follow as more information became available.
That left many students refreshing login pages while universities scrambled to determine whether deadlines, examinations and coursework schedules would need adjustments. On social media, frustration grew quickly.
“As much as I hate Canvas pls go back up I need to submit my final paper and take an exam,” one user posted. Another wrote simply: “When will Canvas go back up?”
Elite Universities Reportedly Affected
Reports surrounding the breach claim suggested the potential impact could extend across a large portion of the higher education ecosystem. According to TechRadar, institutions reportedly appearing on affected lists included:
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Oxford
Stanford University
Princeton University
Columbia University
Other universities reportedly referenced included Cambridge, Cornell, Berkeley and Georgetown. The full extent of exposure, however, remains unclear.
