This week, US-based education technology provider announced a significant cybersecurity incident . This is used by schools and universities around the world, including in Australia.
Cyber crime group has . On Thursday, the group it had breached Instructure in another attack. Almost , involving 275 million students, teachers and staff are understood to be caught up in the data breach.
The hack has seen school . In Australia, students at institutions such as the University of Melbourne have been amid a global outage. The Queensland government’s “” is students and staff working or studying at public schools since 2020 have been affected.
the exposed information may include names, email addresses, student identification numbers and private messages exchanged between users.
Learning is online – and so is student information
is widely used across the . It is one of several digital “” that deliver teaching, assessment, communication and student support services.
Other common systems include Moodle and Blackboard, which help institutions manage coursework, assessments, attendance, analytics (like student engagement) and student administration.
The rapid growth of online and hybrid education (where students learn online and in person) has encouraged the adoption of in schools and universities.
Many institutions now operate these systems through models rather than maintaining all infrastructure internally. Students and staff can access these platforms through web browsers, desktop applications and mobile devices.
As a result, education providers now store significant volumes of sensitive information .
While these systems provide flexibility and accessibility, they also create highly interconnected digital environments that can become attractive targets for cybercriminals.
A shift is happening
The Canvas incident is not the only breach. In 2025, ransomware attacks in schools and universities had jumped by 23% over the previous year.
But there is also an important shift occurring.
often affected a single university or school through ransomware or .
In contrast, incidents involving Canvas and another platform, , demonstrate a growing “platform concentration risk”. This is where one cyber incident can rapidly affect thousands of institutions and millions of students simultaneously because so many organisations rely on the same providers. Sadly, it is not just the education sector that is vulnerable to such incidents, any service reliant on internet can be be affected.
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Another emerging concern is the increasing sensitivity of the information exposed. Recent incidents reportedly involve within educational environments among all stakeholders (students, teachers, and staff). This raises broader concerns around privacy, safety, mental wellbeing and institutional trust.
What do we need to do to better protect student information?
The Canvas incident highlights how dependent the education sector has become on large cloud and education technology platforms.
When widely used systems experience cyber incidents, the effects can quickly spread across thousands of institutions and millions of students. Schools and universities therefore need stronger oversight of vendors and clearer accountability regarding how student data is stored, shared and protected.
Institutions also need . This needs to involve multi-factor authentication, tighter identity management, encryption and “” approaches. This means every access request is continuously verified.
Sensitive information relating to student wellbeing, counselling or disability support should receive additional protection and restricted access.
Cyber awareness across the education community must also improve. Students, parents and teachers are through phishing and impersonation after breaches occur.
Governments should also consider stronger and more consistent cyber resilience standards for education technology providers.
As it stands, breaches can potentially affect privacy, safety, trust and mental wellbeing across the broader community.
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