Cyberattack disrupts Canvas learning platform during college final exams nationwide

A cyberattack shut down Canvas, a learning management platform serving 30 million students and faculty across thousands of U.S. schools and universities, during final exam week. The group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility and issued a ransom demand. Major institutions including Harvard, MIT, Penn State, and University of Wisconsin-Madison postponed finals as they scrambled to implement workarounds.

Why post about this

This is an active emergency with a finals-week ticking clock affecting 30 million people at name-brand schools — the relatability is off the charts and creators who get coverage out today own the conversation. ShinyHunters is also building a serial-villain brand worth establishing now.

Suggested angle

Treat this as ransomware's perfect storm: critical timing, soft target, name-brand victims — and ask why ed-tech infrastructure remains catastrophically under-defended despite holding more sensitive data than most banks.

Platform angles

Instagram · carousel · 30M students just lost access to their finals during the worst week of the semester. Here's what happened in the last 48 hours — and why your data isn't safe. · #CanvasDown #Cybersecurity #CollegeLife #DataBreach #FinalsSeason

Facebook_page · Single image post with urgent caption — pair with a visual showing Canvas error screen or a frustrated student at laptop, text overlay: 'Finals Week. 30M Students. System Down.' · Canvas is down nationwide during finals week and 30 million college students just lost access to exams, grades, and assignments. This isn't a glitch — it's a cyberattack by ShinyHunters, and it's exposing how dangerously under-protected your kid's school data really is. · #CyberSecurity #HigherEducation

Linkedin · Text-only post with strategic line breaks · Canvas is down during finals week at 30M students' schools. Your SaaS vendor will fail at the worst possible time too. Here's what every CISO should ask their third-party dependencies TODAY: · #CyberSecurity #CISO #ThirdPartyRisk #SaaS #InfoSec

Tiktok · Short video (15-30s, fast cuts between 'studying' setup and 'Canvas down' panic, text overlays for key facts) · POV: You studied 40 hours for your final and Russian hackers said 'not today' — Canvas is DOWN during finals week affecting 30M students · #CanvasDown #FinalExams #CyberAttack #CollegeLife #EdTech

X · Thread (hook + 3-4 body tweets establishing scope/impact/systemic failure + closer with accountability question) · Canvas down during finals week. 30M students locked out. ShinyHunters claims responsibility. Ed-tech holds more sensitive data than most banks but defends it like a WordPress blog. 🧵 · #Canvas #CyberSecurity

Bluesky · Thread (4-5 posts) · Canvas down during finals week. 30M students can't access exams. ShinyHunters claims the attack. This is what happens when we fund ed-tech security like it's optional. · #Cybersecurity #EdTech #Canvas

Mastodon · Thread (3-4 posts with CW on first post) · CW: cyberattack, education disruption Canvas LMS is down during finals week. 30 million students at major universities can't access exams, grades, or assignments. ShinyHunters claims responsibility. This isn't just an outage — it's a wake-up call about how catastrophically under-defended education infrastructure is despite holding more sensitive data than most banks. · #CyberSecurity #EdTech #HigherEducation #Ransomware #DataSecurity

Original source: Multi-source