A cyberattack to the Canvas learning management system used by thousands of colleges and universities across the world, has sent San Antonio institutions into a scramble to regain access and secure information amid finals week. 

“We understand that Canvas contains class notes, lectures, and other important information that you need to take your finals and complete your courses,” reads a message sent to UT San Antonio students on Thursday evening. “To help minimize disruption to students during final exams, all assignments and exams that are due on or before Friday, May 8 on the academic campus will be rescheduled for a near future date.”

Officials at the confirmed affected institutions — the University of Texas at San Antonio, Alamo Colleges District’s five colleges, University of the Incarnate Word and St. Mary’s University — warn students, faculty and staff to stay alert. 

Trinity University officials say they also lost access to Canvas when the platform’s parent company, Instructure, took down the system temporarily to address the hack. But the company has since informed Trinity officials that there was no confirmed breach of the university’s website or any of their digital platforms.

“The lack of access to Canvas at Trinity was due to the Instructure shutdown, not to an external attack. During this shutdown, Instructure identified the probable path hackers took and corrected the situation,” reads a statement issued by Trinity University officials on Friday.  

As of Thursday evening UT San Antonio officials warned they’ve already received reports of fraudulent messages claiming to be able to restore access to Canvas.

“Do NOT click links in unsolicited emails claiming to be from Canvas, Instructure or UT San Antonio IT,” university officials warned.

The hack was reported on Thursday, with a hacking group calling themselves ShinyHunters claiming responsibility and asking institutions to “negotiate a settlement” by May 12 to avoid a massive data leak.

The hack has brought afloat concerns over public education institutions’ reliance on external online platforms as administrative and instructional tools, which can then become targets to cyber attacks and data breaches.

Universities across San Antonio issued initial notices to their students on Thursday evening, warning them of the hack and asking them to avoid trying to log into the platform while they worked with Canvas to resolve the issue. 

They were also forced to extend deadlines for final exams and other end-of-semester assignments, with some leaving any necessary extensions up to faculty’s discretion. 

“All final exams and deadlines previously scheduled during yesterday’s Canvas outage and for today, May 8, will be rescheduled and/or extended through Friday, May 15. Grade deadlines for faculty remain extended through Tuesday, May 19,” reads an update sent to UIW students early Friday. 

By Friday morning UT San Antonio still lacked full access to the platform and officials said they were working to reconfigure some of the Canvas-related tools. But other institutions, including UIW and Alamo Colleges, said their access had been fully restored. 

It is still unclear how universities are handling the threat of a data leak. But students were asked to continue reporting any access issues and were warned to remain alert. 

“UIW Information Security has ensured that all user accounts are secure and are carefully monitoring the situation,” a message sent Friday morning reads. “Be aware that phishing attempts often follow incidents like this, so please remain vigilant and avoid clicking on suspicious emails or messages.” 

The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.