‘This was a very planned and deliberate attack.’

Sophomore in computer science and cybersecurity wasn’t surprised by Canvas hack, discusses perspective on nationwide shutdown. 

Hackers breached Canvas by Instructure on May 7,  prompting a nationwide shutdown of the website. Over 40% of higher education institutions in the United States, including K-State, use Canvas as their Learning Management System. (Graphic by Declan Phipps)

Watch the full video story (Declan Phipps)

What started as a seemingly normal day for K-State students quickly went south when, around noon on May 7, students who tried to log onto Canvas were greeted with a dark screen reading “ShinyHunters has breached Instructure,” and that schools have until the end of the day on May 12 before “everything is leaked.”

Students who tried to log onto Canvas on May 7 were instead greeted with a message from ShinyHunters, the hackers responsible for breaching Instructure. Images of the message quickly spread across the nation as students discovered the breach. (Photo Courtesy of Dawson Wagner)

However, Atem Akuei, sophomore in computer science and cybersecurity, said he wasn’t surprised by the attack because of a known cybersecurity creator’s TikTok video he had seen days before May 7, which revealed that Canvas had actually been hacked on May 1.

“Not a whole lot was known except that they [Canvas] had been hacked and that they [ShinyHunters] had over three terabytes of data,” Akuei said.

Instructure has since stated on its website that it originally detected unauthorized activity on April 29 and “immediately revoked the unauthorized party’s access, started an investigation, and engaged outside forensic experts.”

However, the hackers, who dub themselves ShinyHunters, weren’t completely removed from the site, leading to the shutdown on May 7.

“I did not log onto Canvas that day,” Akuei said. “However, the cybersecurity world was blowing up, and I’m in a couple of forums, and they all had mentioned the infamous screenshot. … At first, it was very jarring because it is a very large website, but I wasn’t necessarily surprised by the fact. I didn’t necessarily know what that message was trying to deliver. … I took a look through my forums [and] realized … it just put more pressure on Instructure to go ahead and pay the ransom or to somehow deal with the situation.”

Akuei said the timing of the attack was no coincidence and that his immediate reaction was one of concern for the safety of those who are most vulnerable.

“They’re [ShinyHunters] putting pressure on Instructure because it is finals season,” Akuei said. “So this was a very planned and deliberate attack. … My immediate thought behind it when I saw that page was … how do we go ahead and protect minors, because they have information from K-12 schools.”

On May 12, Instructure announced it struck a deal with ShinyHunters, returning all stolen data to affected Canvas users. However, though the breach has been addressed and access to Canvas restored, Akuei said there are still many questions left to be answered. 

“Now that they’ve been hacked and that became really big news, what's the next step?” Akuei said. “How is the cybersecurity world going to combat that, and how is the general public going to view cybersecurity and safety online? … Then comes the follow-up of, although yes, there’s a lot of fear, how do we also move past that fear?”