Mississippi State University is altering its exam schedule following a cyberattack on an online platform used by thousands of educational institutions nationwide.
University officials announced that final exams scheduled for Friday will now be held on Saturday, potentially disrupting some students’ and faculty members’ weekend plans. The update comes after a criminal hacker group called ShinyHunters breached Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, a widely used education technology platform, on Thursday.
“For exams and other Canvas-related activities that were affected during the outage, we ask that faculty work with their departments and colleges on a reasonable solution that allows students the opportunity to complete any exams or assignments,” an official statement from the university reads.
“Faculty are encouraged to download current copies of their Canvas course grade books and any other material needed to complete their courses out of an abundance of caution.”
The Instructure breach reportedly impacted around 275 million users across around 9,000 academic institutions in the U.S.. Hackers had access to names, email addresses, and even messages of users, and demanded a ransom from schools to prevent having sensitive information leaked.
Along with Mississippi State, Mississippi Free Press reports that Delta State University, the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, East Mississippi Community College, Southwest Mississippi Community College, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi College, and Mississippi Valley State University were targeted. The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science was also affected by the cyberattack.
Hackers displayed a message across the Canvas platform on Thursday, claiming it had obtained confidential data from an extensive list of institutions, and that each had until May 12 to reach some sort of settlement. Since then, Instructure has publicly weighed in on the cyberattack, saying it has identified the source and has taken measures to contain it, including consulting with forensics experts and law enforcement.
“Instructure recently identified unauthorized activity in Canvas LMS,” a statement from Instructure reads. “We took immediate steps to contain the activity, brought in outside forensic experts, and notified law enforcement.”
Canvas is currently up and running with no disruptions. Officials say the platform is back online and available for use by educators and students.