05/18/2026
Listen as Pearl Technology's Dave Johnson discusses the on The Greg and Dan Show.
Here are some takeaways:
Canvas, a Learning Management System owned by Instructure, is used by more than 8,800 schools & universities worldwide
• Over 30 million students & educators use Canvas
• Students can submit assignments, take quizzes/exams & message their teachers & classmates, while instructors often use it to input grades, upload instructional materials, & share announcements with their classes
• Several Illinois universities reported issues with Canvas, including Northwestern, the University of Chicago & the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The breach was done by ShinyHunters, who have been active since 2020
• The group operates under a "Pay or Leak" extortion model: breach an organization, exfiltrate data, issue private ransom demands & publicly shame non-paying victims via a dark web leak site
ShinyHunters first breached the Canvas system around May 1 to steal the data, then struck again on May 7, replacing the login pages with ransom messages during finals week
280 million records were stolen containing student ID numbers, email addresses, names, enrollment records & private messages between students & teachers
ShinyHunters initially demanded ransoms with a May 6 deadline, later extended to May 12, threatening to leak all data
Instructure announced on May 12 that it reached an agreement with the hackers to have the stolen data returned & copies destroyed
Other breaches recently claimed by ShinyHunters include Google, Cisco, PornHub, the European Commission, online dating giant Match Group (Tinder, Match.com, Plenty of Fish, etc.), Rockstar Games, home security giant ADT, video service Vimeo, edtech giant McGraw-Hill, medical device maker Medtronic & Spanish fast-fashion retailer Zara
Greg and Phil talk with Dave Johnson of Pearl Technology about a reported security breach involving the widely used Canvas platform used in schools across the United States. He explains what happened, the scope of the incident, and its overall impact, noting that approximately 280 million records ma...
