Massive Canvas outage disrupts classes at Harvard, Stanford and thousands of schools Last updated: May 08, 2026 | 03:44 The Canvas learning platform blocked in a cyberattack affecting thousands of US schools. It has been claimed by ShinyHunters, a well-known cyber extortion group active since at least 2019. Anthony Shkraba / Pexels US universities including Harvard, Stanford and thousands of other institutions were hit by a massive cyber hack on Thursday following an earlier data breach. The attack, claimed by ShinyHunters, a well-known cyber extortion group active since at least 2019, saw access to the Canvas learning platform blocked. According to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper and posts on social media, students attempting to access the system on Thursday saw a message from the hacking group saying servers belonging to Canvas's parent company Instructure had "again" been breached. "Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us and did some 'security patches,'" the hackers said.…