Two more Hong Kong educational institutions hit by Canvas learning platform data breach

The fallout from a cyberattack on the popular online learning management platform Canvas has widened in Hong Kong, with the city's privacy watchdog confirming on Monday that two more educational institutions have reported data breaches.

This brings the total number of affected local schools and organizations to seven, with tens of thousands of students potentially having their personal information compromised following the late April hack of the platform's developer, Instructure.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data stated that the City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Art School formally reported their respective data leak incidents over the weekend.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the breach at City University is particularly extensive, impacting approximately 28,000 students.

The compromised data for these individuals may include their names, email addresses, enrolled course details, system usernames, student identification numbers, and internal platform messages.

Meanwhile, the breach at the Hong Kong Art School is currently estimated to affect around 71 students, with the exposed information potentially limited to names and email addresses.

These two newly disclosed reports follow earlier notifications from five other local institutions that were also impacted by the system intrusion. The previously identified organizations include the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong Institute of Construction, Hong Kong Education City Limited, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

In response to the growing scope of the cybersecurity incident, the privacy commissioner has strongly advised all involved institutions to notify affected students and staff as soon as possible and to provide necessary assistance to mitigate any further risks or expansion of the data leak.

 

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