Thousands of students around the country, and the world, who were preparing for final exams last week suddenly found themselves locked out of their online university software after a cyberattack disrupted Canvas, one of the country’s most widely used online learning platforms.
The breach affected nearly 9,000 schools and educational institutions worldwide during one of the busiest periods of the academic year, forcing some universities – including portions of the University of Illinois system – to pause coursework, extend deadlines and improvise alternatives while information technology staffs assessed the disruption.
The incident exposed how dependent modern universities have become on a small number of centralized digital vendors that now function as critical infrastructure for higher education.
