Students at the University of South Florida were among thousands across the country affected by a cyberattack targeting Canvas, the online learning platform widely used by schools and universities.The outage happened during fina ls week, leaving many students temporarily unable to access assignments, exams and grades.Watch report from Erik Waxler Canvas cyberattack disrupts finals week for University of South Florida studentsFor USF student Rufus Pope, Canvas is central to everyday college life.Thats how you get your assignments. Thats how you know where to go. If you are taking any kind of online course, you are using Canvas to do so, Pope said.Pope, who is studying to become a doctor, said he first learned about the hack from his daughter, who is in eighth grade and also uses Canvas.Shes like, 'Dad, it looks like Canvas has been hacked.' 'I said, are you serious?' He said.Students across USFs campus said the timing could not have been worse.Anjana Vallepalli said the outage disrupted one of her finals.Like I had to take my final today. I was supposed to take it last night. So, that changed a bunch of things around, Vallepalli said.Another student, Roman Specht, said he worried the outage would affect his grades.I have three assignments due that I wasnt able to complete because it was just stolen out from under me. So, I couldnt go in. I thought I was going to fail classes, Specht said.The company behind Canvas, Instructure, said hackers gained unauthorized access to the platform through what it called Free for Teacher accounts.The hacking group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack and reportedly warned universities to contact the group before May 12 if they did not want data released online.Instructure temporarily shut down Canvas while it investigated the breach. The platform has since been restored.Students said they are now concerned about what information may have been exposed.Theres a lot of financial stuff in there. And a lot of other stuff thats really important, like social security number and everything, said Vallepalli.However, Instructure said there is no evidence passwords, financial information or Social Security numbers were accessed. The company said names, email addresses, student ID numbers and messages between users may have been compromised.You never really know what people can do with that information. But I just trust that the university will take care of it, said Alejandra Acero.Cybersecurity experts say the incident highlights how dependent schools have become on digital learning systems. Canvas serves more than 30 million users worldwide.Pope said he was relieved the outage did not last longer.It looks like everything is up and running now. I was able to get my course grade. Got a B in the class. Im happy about that, he said. ...read more read less