Faculty, staff and students, We need to alert you that Instructure, Canvas’ parent company, has shut down Canvas nationwide due to a cybersecurity incident that has affected education institutions across the country.
We do not know when service will be restored. Instructure has posted a status page to share updates on the outage. We will follow up when Canvas is available. All faculty are urged to be flexible and compassionate with students during the Canvas outage, especially as we are entering exams. Please communicate with your students, reassure them, and keep them aware of any changes for your class. You can email your class via the Faculty Waitlist in Banner (through MyUTK > Top Links > Faculty/Advisors).
We will send a non-emergency UTAlert when Canvas is online. We will also provide an update for students and faculty on Friday morning.
Precautionary measures related to data
Related to this incident, Instructure has notified the Office of Innovative Technologies (OIT) of a data breach associated with some accounts. Based on what Instructure has found to date, the data involved appears to include personal information. At this time, Instructure has found no indication that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved, and the university does not store this information in Canvas.
OIT will reach out if you need to take any action. Please note the following general precautions.
- Be on the lookout for phishy emails and follow OIT’s online instructions to learn how to spot a scam and report it to OIT.
- Access MyUTK, UT Microsoft 365, UT Google, Canvas, and other university websites directly. Avoid opening links and attachments from unknown senders. Do not open attachments unless you are expecting a file from someone. OIT will continue to monitor the incident. Thank you for your flexibility during this serious disruption.
OIT will continue to monitor the incident. Thank you for your flexibility during this serious disruption.
Sincerely, John Zomchick
Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor
Dan Harder
Chief Academic Technology Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer