Canada · BBC Technology
Mississippi State University later announced some exams would be postponed to allow students to recover any lost work
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Shiny Hunters is known for hacking organisations, stealing data and then publicly pressuring victims to pay ransoms in bitcoin.
Key facts
- Shiny Hunters has also claimed it breached the company again in April 2026, ahead of the 29 April attack
- Aubrey Palmer, a meteorology student at Mississippi State University, told the BBC that they and other students had finished writing a 2,900‑word exam essay when a ransom message suddenly appeared
- The cyber-attack affected an estimated 9,000 institutions in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, with exams disrupted after the Canvas service went down
- In Telegram messages exchanged with the BBC, Shiny Hunters said it had hacked Canvas twice before last Thursday's attack
Summary
The company behind the popular Canvas software, which was hacked last week causing major disruption at thousands of universities and colleges, has paid the hackers not to publish stolen data online. The cyber-attack affected an estimated 9,000 institutions in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, with exams disrupted after the Canvas service went down. The hackers threatened to publish 3.5 terabytes of student and university data they had stolen in the breach. Instructure, the maker of Canvas, has now confirmed it has "reached an agreement" with the hackers, who have said they deleted the data and promised not to extort any students or institutions. Paying cyber criminals goes against the advice of law enforcement agencies around the world, as it can fuel further attacks and offers no guarantee the data has been deleted.