Hunter
05/08/26
A national data breach of the Canvas system used by over 8800 colleges, school districts and online education platforms has affected students and faculty at the University of Iowa.
In a message to the UI campus community Thursday, UI Provost Kevin Kregel and Chief Information Officer Brad Rohrer said, “At this time, ICON, the University of Iowa’s Canvas product, is unavailable for users because of a national cybersecurity issue affecting numerous universities across the country.
“Our ITS team is actively monitoring the situation and remains in close communication with the vendor as they work to resolve the issue safely and restore service. We recognize how disruptive this is — particularly as we approach the end of the semester — and we are working closely with faculty to ensure flexibility and continuity for our students.”
Iowa State and the Iowa City Community School District were also affected.
Multiple media reports say cybercriminal group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack. CBS News reports they posted online that nearly 9000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed. Screenshots showed that the group began threatening to leak the data on Sunday and set deadlines of Thursday and another on May 12th, which indicates discussions regarding extortion payments may be ongoing.