How a massive hack on school software disrupted classes across America

SecurityHow a massive hack on school software disrupted classes across AmericaInstructure, parent company of the education platform Canvas, said it took “immediate steps” to contain the hack before calling law enforcement. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Columbia University was one of the schools affected by the Canvas software hack.Ted Shaffrey / AP fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 8, 2026, 5:03 PM EDTBy David K. Li, Griffin Eckstein and Brittany KubickoUniversities across America hastily made new schedules on Friday in the wake of a massive cyberattack that has thrown final exam calendars and basic classroom activities into chaos.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The academic anarchy was touched off Thursday afternoon when operators of online education platform Canvas, used in K-12 schools and colleges across the globe, were forced to shut down after a hacker’s intrusion.The Canvas platform provides digital course infrastructure for instructors and students. Teachers can upload course materials, communicate with students and grade assignments. Students can view and download necessary course materials, participate in exercises and upload completed material.“It’s quite literally everything,” Rutgers University sophomore Travis Park, a civil engineering major, told NBC News on Friday.“It’s a tool that does everything for us. This is how we communicate with professors, how we request any alterations to our grades, it’s where we can see our grade book throughout the semester.” The hacking group ShinyHunters claimed in a May 3 statement that it had obtained about 6.65 terabytes of Canvas data from 9,000 schools worldwide.Then on Thursday, students and staff across America logged into Canvas and reported finding a note from the hackers and a warning: if demands are not met by the end of Tuesday, everything would be leaked.Late Thursday night, Canvas, which has more than 30 million act...