Canvas incident
Hester Hornbrook Academy was notified on Friday 8th May, of a cyber incident impacting the Canvas learning management system used by the school community. Instructure, the vendor of Canvas, confirmed that data relating to Hester Hornbrook had been impacted as part of the incident.
Following notification of the incident, Hester Hornbrook Academy immediately implemented a range of security measures to support the protection of student and staff information and the integrity of the platform. This included working closely with relevant ICT and cybersecurity specialists, monitoring the system for unusual activity, supporting password resets for students and staff, and implementing additional security and monitoring measures while investigations continued.
Instructure has advised that the affected data has now been returned and copies destroyed. Instructure has also confirmed that impacted customers are not expected to receive extortion demands as a result of the incident.
Canvas has now been restored and is available for students and staff to access. Additional monitoring and security measures remain in place to support the ongoing security of the platform.
Students are encouraged to remain alert to unusual activity and continue to practise good cybersecurity, including being cautious of phishing emails, suspicious links, unknown phone calls, and requests for personal information.
We thank our students, families and staff for their patience and understanding as we worked to restore access.