Canvas cyberattack affects schools in Yuma County

YUMA COUNTY, Ariz. (KYMA) - Multiple school systems in Yuma County were impacted this week after a data breach involving the academic platform Canvas exposed student and staff information. The breach affected tens of millions of users nationwide and prompted Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, to temporarily shut down the website Thursday while working to resolve the issue.

Local school districts that use Canvas reported that the exposed information included student and staff names, email addresses and course enrollment details. Officials said no major disruptions to end-of-year academic activities have been reported.

“The type of information that we share with Canvas that we would suspect was breached was things like student name, student email addresses, and then course information - so, if they were taking a specific class, what class that would be - and the same would go for staff members,” said Eric Patten, Chief Communications Officer for Yuma Union High School District.

School officials are encouraging students and staff to remain cautious online following the incident, particularly when opening emails or clicking unfamiliar links. Despite concerns surrounding the breach, operations are continuing largely without interruption as schools approach graduation and final exams.

“It’s almost business as usual for us. Just again, being mindful of the type of emails or things that we are opening. We are not really effected in the grand scheme of things with graduation, or final projects or final grades being turned in,” Patten said.

Arizona Western College, which also uses Canvas, released a statement addressing the cybersecurity incident.

“We are aware of and carefully monitoring the cybersecurity incident affecting Canvas, a platform used by educational institutions worldwide. This issue is not specific to AWC, and our own college systems and networks remain secure. We know this comes at a critical time for our students, and we have asked faculty to offer flexibility for any work affected by the outage. Cybersecurity threats like this are a serious and growing challenge in education, and we remain committed to the highest standards of data security. We will continue to update our students, faculty, and staff of this incident through official college channels.“