UW Canvas service restored

Update at 10:20 a.m. Saturday: UW Canvas access has been restored to UW users following a UWIT and independent security assessment.

At this time, we have no evidence that UW NetID passwords were exposed, but out of an abundance of caution, UWIT recommends all UW Canvas users change their password. For password resets, please go to identity.uw.edu/account/resetpassword.

Access to other systems and tools typically accessed through Canvas, including Parchment, Panopto, and Jupyter Notebooks, is also being restored.

If your Canvas course uses other apps, such as Panopto or Office 365, you may be prompted to re-authorize access to each app for your account. This is expected; please authorize if prompted.

UW users have not had access to Canvas since the outage began around 1 p.m. on Thursday.

Information for students

Students, if you have questions about deadlines or assignment submissions, check directly with your classroom instructor. Please note that deadlines listed in UW Canvas are from prior to the outage, and your instructor would not have had access to UW Canvas to make any changes until 10 a.m. today.

Information for faculty, instructors and teaching assistants

Faculty, instructors and teaching assistants may wish to modify activities, assignments and exams impacted by the outage.

The following guides may be useful to faculty and instructional teams who are updating course assignments:

• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• Classic quizzes: Once I publish a quiz, how do I grant students extra attempts?
• New quizzes: How do I update a quiz to allow multiple attempts?

System security

Instructure, the Canvas provider, has completed verification of its system security in coordination with its independent forensics partner, CrowdStrike. 

On May 8, CrowdStrike reported that there is no evidence that the threat actor had system-level access, installed malware nor obtained login credentials, nor that any additional data was extracted during the renewed activity on May 7. 

Based on the investigation so far, some education-related information including names, email addresses and messages sent within the platform may have been exposed. Additional investigation into data exposure is ongoing. 

CrowdStrike has found no evidence that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, such as Social Security Numbers, or financial information were exposed. UW Canvas does not include sensitive personal information such as Social Security Numbers, home addresses, billing information or financial aid information.

We will continue to review additional information from Instructure as it becomes available and to communicate updates to the UW community.

Please be mindful of an increased risk of phishing attacks. See UWIT guidance on how to identify and respond to phishing attacks and follow cybersecurity best practices. 

Additional information

UWIT will post any future updates at the UW Canvas incident webpage and the UWIT’s Service Status website — where you can subscribe to receive email updates and the UW. Instructure has also posted information about the incident on its website.

UW Canvas access has been restored to UW users following a UWIT and independent security assessment.

At this time, we have no evidence that UW NetID passwords were exposed, but out of an abundance of caution, UWIT recommends all UW Canvas users change their password. For password resets, please go to identity.uw.edu/account/resetpassword.

Access to other systems and tools typically accessed through Canvas, including Parchment, Panopto, and Jupyter Notebooks, is also being restored.

If your Canvas course uses other apps, such as Panopto or Office 365, you may be prompted to re-authorize access to each app for your account. This is expected; please authorize if prompted.

UW users have not had access to Canvas since the outage began around 1 p.m. on Thursday.

UWIT will post any future updates at the UW Canvas incident webpage and the UWIT’s Service Status website — where you can subscribe to receive email updates and the UW. Instructure has also posted information about the incident on its website.

Posted May 9, 2026 10:07 am

Canvas outage

Update at 2:40 p.m.: UWIT is still waiting for Instructure, the Canvas provider, to complete verification of its system security. At this point, we do not have an estimate for when UW Canvas will be available again. The next update will be provided by 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 9, or sooner if information becomes available. 

Faculty members, instructors and teaching assistants who would like to contact their students via email may export a course roster, including student UW email addresses via MyUW. Please note that users cannot access UW Canvas to submit assignments, message instructors or students or access course content.

The UW Canvas outage means that several other systems are unavailable, including Parchment, Panopto, and Jupyter Notebooks. Other tools that are typically accessed through Canvas may have reduced functionality at this time.

We will post updates at the UW Canvas incident webpage and the UWIT’s Service Status website — where you can subscribe to receive email updates and the UW — as services are restored and additional information becomes available. Instructure has also posted information about the incident on its website.

Update at 12:40 p.m.: UWIT is still waiting for Instructure, the Canvas provider, to complete verification of its system security. At this point, we do not have an estimate for when UW Canvas will be available again. The next update will be provided by 3 p.m. or sooner if information becomes available.

While new logins to UW Canvas have been prevented, this step did not remove access for those already signed in. If you are signed into Canvas, sign out now until the security assessment is complete.

Faculty members, instructors and teaching assistants who would like to contact their students via email may export a course roster, including student UW email addresses via MyUW.

We will post updates at the UW Canvas incident webpage and the UWIT’s Service Status website — where you can subscribe to receive email updates and the UW — as services are restored and additional information becomes available. Instructure has also posted information about the incident on its website.

Update at 8:30 a.m. Friday: UWIT is waiting for Instructure, the Canvas provider, to complete verification of its system security. UWIT has also completed full data backups of grade files and conducted its own assessment of Canvas security.

According to Instructure, on May 7, an unauthorized actor made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in. Instructure identified this unauthorized activity and took steps to contain it, including temporarily taking Canvas offline into maintenance mode as a precaution to prevent further unauthorized access. Working in coordination with its independent forensics partner, Instructure has found no evidence that the unauthorized actor maintained a connection to its system, obtained credentials for accounts within the UW institution, or extracted any additional data.

The UW Canvas outage means that several other systems are unavailable, including Parchment, Panopto, and Jupyter Notebooks. Other tools that are typically accessed through Canvas may have reduced functionality at this time.

While the UW Zoom integration in Canvas is unavailable, UW Zoom remains functional and meeting links should remain active and available.

Additionally, Instructure confirmed that the unauthorized actor carried out this activity by exploiting an issue related to its Free-For-Teacher accounts. The company stated that the entry point for the incident last week was also through the Free-For-Teacher accounts. As a result, Instructure has made the decision to temporarily shut down its Free-For-Teacher accounts.

We will post updates at the UW Canvas incident webpage and the UWIT’s Service Status website — where you can subscribe to receive email updates and the UW — as services are restored and additional information becomes available. Instructure has also posted information about the incident on its website.

Update at 8 p.m.: Canvas will remain unavailable to UW users tonight, May 7. Canvas has made the platform available to their customers as of 7:15 p.m. However, out of an abundance of caution, UWIT disabled UW login to Canvas to allow for additional security assessment. UWIT will provide an update about access restoration at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 8 unless more is known sooner. Register.UW is working and available for student class registration.

Update at 7:35 p.m.: In response to the Canvas security incident, UWIT has suspended login to UW Canvas while UWIT verifies that the platform is secure and stable. For more information on the incident and our response, please visit UWIT’s Service Status website.

Update at 4:15 p.m.: At this time, Canvas has reported to their customers that they have found no indication that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information was involved in the cybersecurity incident.

UWIT is advising students and employees to continue to watch out for phishing emails and follow cybersecurity best practices.

UW Information Technology learned today at 1 p.m. that Canvas, which is used for UW online learning, is experiencing a global outage due to an apparent security incident. Canvas is fully inaccessible to all users at this time.

Other educational technology tools, such as Panopto, Gradescope, and Poll Everywhere, will not be directly accessible through Canvas and will have limited availability at this time.

We will post updates at UWIT’s Service Status website — where you can subscribe to receive email updates — as services are restored.

Posted May 7, 2026 2:37 pm