Cyberattack hits Canvas affecting colleges in NJ and nationwide

• A group called "Shiny Hunters" has reportedly claimed responsibility for the hack and set a deadline of May 12 for schools to negotiate a settlement.

Hackers launched a large-scale cyberattack on the educational platform Canvas on May 7.

The online platform where students access their classes and grades was currently inaccessible.

Virgnia Rep. Don Beyer posted: "9,000 schools across the country are being affected by a massive hack right now that is shutting down Canvas during finals week for millions of American students."

A group called "Shiny Hunters" has reportedly claimed responsibility for the hack with images circulating online that say: "ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again). Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us..."

The message continues: "If any of the schools in the affected list are interested in preventing the release of their data, please consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact us privately at TOX to negotiate a settlement. You have till the end of the day by 12 May 2026 before everything is leaked."

The cyberattack has led to at least one school delaying finals on Friday, May 8. "With Canvas down at the national level, Baylor University will delay final exams tomorrow," Baylor University in Texas posted.

Other impacted universities include: Columbia, Harvard, Boston College, Penn State, Oklahoma, Mississippi State and Kentucky.

New Jersey schools impacted

The hack affected universities in New Jersey, as well, including Rutgers, Princeton, Montclair State University and others.

Rutgers IT posted on X around 6 p.m.: "Rutgers is evaluating next steps due to the interruption of Canvas. The university understands that student exams, project submissions, and other efforts may have been interrupted due to this incident."

"At this time, users will experience difficulty accessing Canvas or certain course content," Princeton posted on X around 6:30 p.m.

The university later warned students to watch for phishing messages.

"Be alert for phishing messages referencing Canvas, your courses, or account recovery. Princeton will not direct you to unverified third-party sites for Canvas-related communications, and will not request passwords, Social Security numbers, or account information by email, text, or phone," the school posted.

Montclair State sent an alert to students: "Canvas is not available. It is not known when it will come back up."

"Canvas is currently experiencing a nationwide outage. Users may be unable to log-in. The College will continue to monitor the situation and post updates as soon as they are available," Union College of Union County posted.