By Christian Martinez
LOS ANGELES, May 7 (Reuters) - Education tool Canvas, used by schools, colleges and universities for grades and other class materials, was hacked, blocking students from accessing the application, multiple college student newspapers reported on Thursday.
The Harvard Crimson reported that students could not gain access to the site beginning on Thursday afternoon with hacking group ShinyHunters saying Harvard was among "thousands of schools allegedly affected by a breach of Instructure,
Canvas' parent company."
The Crimson reported that Canvas redirected users to a message from ShinyHunters in which the group claimed responsibility and posted a list of schools that had been breached.
As of late Thursday, Instructure said in a post on its status page that Canvas and other related sites had been placed "in maintenance mode" and it was "investigating an issue where some users are having difficulties logging into Student ePortfolios."
"We anticipate being up soon, and will provide updates as soon as possible," the company said on its website. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper for the University of Pennsylvania, said ShinyHunters in a message posted on Penn's Canvas page last week had said any university that did not wish to have its data released should contact the group before May 12.
Duke University had also been affected by the hack that hit over 9,000 schools, its student newspaper, The Chronicle, said.
Student newspapers from UCLA, the University of Nebraska and others reported that their institutions had been affected.
ShinyHunters has a history of compromising global corporations. In April, the company said it had stolen nearly 80 million business records from video game developer Rockstar Games, the maker of Grand Theft Auto.
(Reporting by Christian Martinez; Editing by Sonali Paul)
