US House Committee Seeks Instructure Testimony Following Multiple Canvas Data Breaches

U.S. House lawmakers are pressing Instructure, the company behind the Canvas educational platform, to provide detailed answers regarding recent cyberattacks that compromised the personal data of millions of students worldwide. The House Homeland Security Committee, led by Representative Andrew Garbarino, is investigating the breaches due to the company’s repeated security failures. Lawmakers are requesting testimony from Instructure CEO Steve Daly to clarify how hackers were able to exploit the same vulnerability twice, the types of data stolen, and the company’s approach to notifying affected schools. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been involved in managing the response. Instructure recently disclosed that it had reached an agreement with the ShinyHunters hacking group, which claimed to have deleted the stolen data. Security experts caution that paying hackers may encourage further attacks, as stolen data can be retained for future extortion. The repeated breaches have raised serious concerns about Instructure’s incident response capabilities and its responsibility to protect the sensitive information of students and educational institutions. At this time, Instructure has not confirmed whether it will respond to the congressional inquiry or who will testify regarding the breaches and cybersecurity measures.