The following announcement was sent to students and teachers at the University of Iceland regarding a security incident in the Canvas learning management system:
"Dear students and teachers,
Late last night, on May 7, another serious security incident occurred at the Canvas service provider, Instructure. According to information from the provider, the learning management system was temporarily taken offline while work was underway to stop unauthorised access.
The incident is not specifically directed at the University of Iceland or its internal systems, but rather at the global Canvas service used by many universities worldwide.
According to Instructure, an unauthorised party altered content on pages visible to some users. The system was placed in maintenance mode to ensure security and has now returned to normal operation. According to the provider, there are no indications that user accounts, passwords, or data were accessed or unlawfully extracted in this attack.
We fully recognise that this disruption has occurred at the worst possible time, during the exam period, and has had a significant negative impact on many students’ exam preparation.
We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding and remarkable patience under these circumstances.
As a precaution, we encourage students and teachers to print important materials as PDF files (print as PDF) so they remain accessible regardless of Canvas.
This includes, among other things:
- exam preparation materials
- assignments and submissions
- other important data needed at the end of the semester
We recommend avoiding downloading materials directly to personal devices from Canvas for the time being. Information on how students can download materials is available on the Canvas homepage of the University of Iceland: Canvas.hi.is
We emphasise that the University of Iceland’s student information system (Ugla) is separate from Canvas. Therefore, national ID numbers, final grades, and similar data are not part of this security incident.
We will continue to monitor the situation closely in consultation with the service provider and will inform you if new information becomes available.
We reiterate that we will do everything in our power to ensure that the end of the spring semester proceeds as smoothly as possible despite these challenging circumstances.
On behalf of the University of Iceland,
IT Security Manager"