SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Thousands of college students across San Diego were locked out of Canvas — the online platform used for final exams, study guides, and grades after a major cyberattack disrupted the service during finals week.
San Diego State University was among more than 9,000 schools worldwide impacted by the attack. SDSU officials said students should now have access to the Canvas portal and that finals will go as planned. Officials with the online platform say passwords and financial information were not compromised.
The cyberattack was claimed by the hacking group ShinyHunters, which says it stole data from more than 275 million users across thousands of schools and universities.
Canvas officials confirmed hackers accessed names, email addresses and messages.
For students already navigating the pressures of finals week, the outage created widespread panic.
"It was happening at the worst possible time and there was a lot going on through my mind cause obviously my finals and then you put that on top of that it's not an ideal time for that to be happening," SDSU student David Hamilton said.
"I initially was pretty scared cause I had a paper due last night and a midterm due last night and an essay so I was getting stressed to complete it and I didn't hear much from my professors," SDSU student Paige Tynan said.
A local cybersecurity expert said schools remain major targets for cybercriminals because of the volume of sensitive data they hold.
"If it's a fee-paying school like a university or such like, you give them financial data, so your social security data, you give them your medical insurance," Tony Anscombe, chief security evangelist at ESET, said.
Anscombe cautioned that even limited stolen data should not be dismissed.
"I don't think we should belittle the small amount of information a cybercriminal has because they will be very inventive in how they use that information to grow their data into a larger amount," Anscombe said.
The CSU Office of the Chancellor said in a statement:
"Protecting the data and privacy of our campus community is a top priority. Throughout this process that has impacted thousands of higher education systems globally, the California State University has worked closely with Instructure, state partners and cybersecurity experts to ensure that our campuses can continue to use Canvas with confidence."
Many universities are urging students and staff to watch for suspicious emails or unusual account activity.
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