TWU regains access to Canvas after nationwide outage. Other universities are still waiting
By Lucinda Breeding-Gonzales | Denton Record-Chronicle
May 8, 2026 at 9:18 AM CDT
This story has been updated as some schools are regaining access to Canvas.
Texas Woman's University regained access this morning to Canvas, a popular learning management system that has been hacked by a criminal extortion group over the last month. The hackers demanded payment from the parent company, Instructure, to prevent the deliberate release of data.
Canvas is a widely used web-based learning management system, a sort of digital classroom where educators load materials and assignments for students, and where students submit assignments and get their grades.
The University of North Texas and UNT Dallas faculty reported that they were locked out of Canvas on Thursday afternoon.
Denton ISD also lost access to the application.
North Central Texas College officials hadn't responded to an inquiry about the status of Canvas for their community by Friday, though the college's commencement and finals were complete last weekend.
The outage hit the day before UNT and TWU commencement ceremonies begin.
"We sent out a university-wide message earlier this morning that Canvas platform has been restored," TWU spokesman Matt Flores said in a mid-morning text message on Friday.
The university posted the following message on its website: "Access to the Canvas platform has been restored. Faculty will offer guidance to students regarding assignments and exams, allowing for reasonable accommodations because of the outage."
UNT's marketing staff said they were reviewing the status of Canvas access.
UNT leadership confirmed Thursday that the platform was disabled.
"As a precautionary measure related to the recent security incident involving Instructure Canvas ... campus-wide access to the Canvas application has been temporarily disabled while the parent company, Instructure, continues its investigation and remediation efforts," a spokeswoman said in a statement.
UNT said it is working with the appropriate teams to discover the impact of the breach. The UNT System marketing office released the following statement:
“Academic and IT leaders at each institution will be convening to discuss how to manage pending assignments, any final exams, grades, etc. and will be providing relevant information to their student populations.”
In the last few weeks, hackers from a criminal extortion group known as ShinyHunters had breached Instructure, the education technology company that owns Canvas. ShinyHunters has also been linked to data breaches at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Harvard universities.
Colleges and school districts maintain large databases that include sensitive and protected information. Schools are routinely subjected to data breach extortion, where hackers use ransomware programs to lock users out of digital platforms they rely on, and demand payment in exchange for access and cybersecurity.
In an email to the UNT community on Thursday, Sampath Pamidimukkala said, "Canvas is currently unavailable." Pamidimukkala is the assistant vice president of academic technologies at UNT.
"The Canvas team is aware of the issue and is actively working to restore service," he said.
The Denton Record-Chronicle reached out to Denton ISD, which uses the platform, according to the district's website. Nick Petito, Denton ISD's chief communications and marketing officer, said the district is unable to access the platform, and that the district had notified families and staff members.
"All other systems are operating normally so it's only the Canvas learning management platform that is down," Petito said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of UNT faculty members were unable to access student tests, papers and projects to review and grade.
A UNT faculty member told the Denton Record-Chronicle that grades are due on Monday. The outage comes at a time when traffic on the UNT Canvas platform is at a peak.
LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
For more than 120 years, the Denton Record-Chronicle has been Denton County's source for locally produced, fact-based journalism. Your support through a tax-deductible donation or low-cost subscription is vital to our ability to deliver credible, relevant, unique coverage of our community.
Texas Woman's University regained access this morning to Canvas, a popular learning management system that has been hacked by a criminal extortion group over the last month. The hackers demanded payment from the parent company, Instructure, to prevent the deliberate release of data.
Canvas is a widely used web-based learning management system, a sort of digital classroom where educators load materials and assignments for students, and where students submit assignments and get their grades.
The University of North Texas and UNT Dallas faculty reported that they were locked out of Canvas on Thursday afternoon.
Denton ISD also lost access to the application.
North Central Texas College officials hadn't responded to an inquiry about the status of Canvas for their community by Friday, though the college's commencement and finals were complete last weekend.
The outage hit the day before UNT and TWU commencement ceremonies begin.
"We sent out a university-wide message earlier this morning that Canvas platform has been restored," TWU spokesman Matt Flores said in a mid-morning text message on Friday.
The university posted the following message on its website: "Access to the Canvas platform has been restored. Faculty will offer guidance to students regarding assignments and exams, allowing for reasonable accommodations because of the outage."
UNT's marketing staff said they were reviewing the status of Canvas access.
UNT leadership confirmed Thursday that the platform was disabled.
"As a precautionary measure related to the recent security incident involving Instructure Canvas ... campus-wide access to the Canvas application has been temporarily disabled while the parent company, Instructure, continues its investigation and remediation efforts," a spokeswoman said in a statement.
UNT said it is working with the appropriate teams to discover the impact of the breach. The UNT System marketing office released the following statement:
“Academic and IT leaders at each institution will be convening to discuss how to manage pending assignments, any final exams, grades, etc. and will be providing relevant information to their student populations.”
In the last few weeks, hackers from a criminal extortion group known as ShinyHunters had breached Instructure, the education technology company that owns Canvas. ShinyHunters has also been linked to data breaches at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Harvard universities.
Colleges and school districts maintain large databases that include sensitive and protected information. Schools are routinely subjected to data breach extortion, where hackers use ransomware programs to lock users out of digital platforms they rely on, and demand payment in exchange for access and cybersecurity.
In an email to the UNT community on Thursday, Sampath Pamidimukkala said, "Canvas is currently unavailable." Pamidimukkala is the assistant vice president of academic technologies at UNT.
"The Canvas team is aware of the issue and is actively working to restore service," he said.
The Denton Record-Chronicle reached out to Denton ISD, which uses the platform, according to the district's website. Nick Petito, Denton ISD's chief communications and marketing officer, said the district is unable to access the platform, and that the district had notified families and staff members.
"All other systems are operating normally so it's only the Canvas learning management platform that is down," Petito said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of UNT faculty members were unable to access student tests, papers and projects to review and grade.
A UNT faculty member told the Denton Record-Chronicle that grades are due on Monday. The outage comes at a time when traffic on the UNT Canvas platform is at a peak.
LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
For more than 120 years, the Denton Record-Chronicle has been Denton County's source for locally produced, fact-based journalism. Your support through a tax-deductible donation or low-cost subscription is vital to our ability to deliver credible, relevant, unique coverage of our community.