Seton Hall students can now access Canvas after a campus-wide outage interrupted usage on Thursday, Chief Information Officer Paul Fisher announced in an email Thursday night.
Fisher noted some integrations are not yet working, but status updates are available through the Systems Status page. He told students to contact their instructors directly with questions about exams or assignments due during the outage and faculty who encounter problems to reach out to their instructional designer.
“We thank you for your patience throughout this disruption; we recognize the added stress it placed on faculty and students during a critical week,” Fisher wrote.
University Relations issued a statement to The Setonian on Friday, confirming SHU as one of the institutions “affected by the cybersecurity incident at Instructure.”
“Based on Instructure's investigation to date, the data involved appears to include personal information, but there is no indication that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved,” University Relations wrote.
According to University Relations, SHU is working with Instructure to “determine the specific scope of impact for Seton Hall.”
“We are sharing precautionary guidance with our community while the vendor's investigation continues, and we will provide additional information as facts are confirmed,” they added.
The outage was a part of a larger security breach impacting over 9,000 universities. Cybercriminal group ShinyHunters said they stole personal data and threatened to leak sensitive information if Canvas’s parent company, Instructure, did not pay the ransom by May 6. ShinyHunters later extended the deadline until the end of the day on May 12.
As a continued precaution, Fisher urged the community to stay alert for “any suspicious messages referencing Canvas,” “courses” or “account recovery.” Students and faculty should also only log in to Canvas through their normal SHU login, he said. Anything suspicious should be reported to the Service Desk.
“The safety and security of your information, and your ability to complete your courses without disruption, remain our top priorities,” Fisher wrote. “Information Technology will continue to monitor the situation and work closely with Instructure to address any further interruptions.”
Dominique Mercadante is the Editor-in-Chief of The Setonian. She can be reached at dominique.mercadante@student.shu.edu.
Lakyn Austin, head editor of The Setonian’s Features section, contributed to reporting.
