Good morning, Viking Community,
We are aware of and monitoring the ongoing cybersecurity incident at Instructure affecting the Canvas Learning Management System. We are pleased to report that as of this morning, Canvas access has been restored following an unannounced service disruption that began yesterday afternoon related to attacks on their system.
Earlier this month, a hacker group obtained access to Instructure’s systems related to Canvas. They initiated an attack on Canvas’ systems yesterday afternoon and were able to change what users see once they log in to a message related to the attack. In that message, the attackers announced they had obtained data for several colleges and universities, and they published a list of affected schools. After the attack began, Instructure quickly took their systems offline.
While users were shut out of the system during the disruption (from about 4:45 pm Thursday until 2:30 am Friday), we can report that Salem State is not on the list of affected schools and based on the information available to us this morning, there is no indication that any Salem State protected information has been accessed. Instructure continues to investigate, and communication from them has been limited while this work is underway. In the meantime, please note that Canvas is available and safe to use as usual.
To help mitigate the impact of the disruption, faculty teaching courses in which the Canvas outage has disrupted students' ability to meet deadlines that had been set for Thursday, May 7, or Friday, May 8, should extend those deadlines to 12 Noon on Monday, May 11, where feasible and appropriate for their courses.
Because the vendor is still actively responding to attacks, additional disruptions or outages are possible. We are monitoring the situation closely and will share updates if conditions change or if any action is required from the campus community.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Steve Swartz
Chief Information Officer