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iOS 19: All the rumored changes Apple could be bringing to its new operating system

iOS 19: All the rumored changes Apple could be bringing to its new operating system

As Apple prepares to unveil iOS 19 at WWDC 2025 on Monday, several rumors have surfaced, including a potential new name for the operating system, a dedicated gaming app, and a virtual health coach. This could be a big update, with a dramatic redesign design inspired by the Vision Pro — and more.  

Here’s a roundup of the most notable features rumored to be coming to iOS 19. 

New name

Sources told Bloomberg that Apple plans to rename its operating systems to reflect the release year rather than using version numbers. This means that iOS 19 will be renamed iOS 26, similar to how car model years are designated. This name change will also apply to other software updates, such as iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26.

Major design overhaul

Anticipated to be the most significant design change since iOS 7, the operating system may feature a complete visual overhaul, one that’s reportedly inspired by Apple’s Vision Pro headset, according to Bloomberg. This could include translucent panels for navigation and circular app icons. The visionOS-inspired design will be made across Apple’s entire ecosystem (including CarPlay) with the goal of creating a more cohesive experience.

Additionally, there are three apps expected to undergo the most changes — the Phone app, Camera, and Safari. For instance, the Phone app is rumored to introduce a new option that allows users to merge their favorite contacts, recent calls, and voicemails into a single view. Meanwhile, both the Camera app and Safari are anticipated to have more visual updates, such as a transparent address bar for Apple’s browser app.

Dedicated gaming app

Apple is also rumored to be releasing a gaming app that will integrate Apple Arcade and the App Store’s game offerings, featuring a central hub for achievements, leaderboards, and App Store content. This comes after the company acquired its first game studio, RAC7, according to DigitalTrends.

Virtual health coach

Apple may also be developing an AI feature to serve as a personal health coach. This new chatbot is expected to suggest lifestyle changes and provide health advice based on user data collected from the Health app. Additionally, the Health app may be revamped to include a food-tracking feature, allowing users to log their carbohydrate and caffeine intake.

Smarter battery management

Apple could improve iPhone battery health with AI-powered battery management. This new feature is reported to analyze device usage and make adjustments to conserve battery life. There may also be a new charging icon on the lock screen that gives an estimated time for when it’s fully charged.

Another rumor suggests that reverse wireless charging is being tested on the iPhone 17 Pro models, allowing users to charge accessories such as AirPods or the Apple Watch directly from their iPhone.

AI translation for Messages

According to 9to5Mac, the Messages app is set to get an Apple Intelligence-powered translation feature that can automatically translate messages as soon as they hit users’ inboxes. 9to5Mac also reports that Apple Intelligence could power a polling feature that lets people in group chats vote and offers AI-generated poll suggestions.

Additionally, Messages may also add the ability to set a background image, following in the footsteps of WhatsApp and Instagram.

Preview app

Apple may bring its Preview app from macOS to iPad and iPhone users, allowing them to annotate and edit PDFs. This will reportedly be a preinstalled app, per Bloomberg.

New Genmoji feature

As Bloomberg reports, Genmoji could gain a small yet exciting feature that allows users to combine existing standard emojis, such as a basketball going into a trash can.

What about Siri?

One notable absence from all the rumors is the impressive Siri capabilities highlighted in Apple’s 2024 presentation, which featured a more context-aware assistant that can gather information and perform actions across different apps. The company stated in March that the new features are delayed. 

While we can expect some AI-related announcements, the primary focus is likely to be on design changes. Reports indicate that improvements to existing Apple Intelligence features will also be introduced, along with some new additions. 

This story was originally published June 3 and will be updated as more rumors come out.

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#iOS #rumored #Apple #bringing #operating #system


French prosecutors who are investigating Elon Musk and his social media platform X have summoned the billionaire to France to face preliminary charges. The investigation is now officially a criminal probe, according to French officials.

France opened a probe in 2025 to investigate whether X has violated French law, an investigation that has expanded following incidents last year when Musk’s AI chatbot Grok started denying the Holocaust, praising Hitler, and allegedly generating child sexual abuse material when prompted by users.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been asked to travel to France to face preliminary charges. As the Journal explains, after preliminary charges have been filed in France, an investigating magistrate starts a process that can take months and doesn’t necessarily mean a trial will be held. It’s entirely possible that the case could ultimately be dropped.

French authorities are looking into the “complicity” of Musk in creating sexual abuse images of minors and sexually explicit deepfakes, according to the Associated Press. Grok also allegedly spread misinformation in French, including a claim that Auschwitz wasn’t a death camp during the Holocaust but was used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.”

Musk purchased Twitter in late 2022 and changed the name to X. The billionaire made many changes to the platform, stripping away safeguards that allowed people to know when an account was verified, and inviting back far-right figures who had previously been banned. Musk welcomed users like white supremacist Nick Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, among a host of others.

Musk also tinkered with the site in ways that turned it into a hotbed of far-right extremism and pro-Trump propaganda in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. Musk donated over $290 million to Republicans in the 2024 cycle and even ran a program that paid some voters in swing states up to $1 million to sign a “petition,” a move that was just very clearly an attempt at paying people to vote for Trump.

Musk, who is currently worth $803 billion, was rewarded with a job overseeing the dismantling of agencies in the federal government under the auspices of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Ultimately, about 300,000 government workers lost their jobs, and USAID was unlawfully dissolved. The cuts to global aid are estimated to lead to 23 million deaths by the year 2030, according to an analysis by The Lancet Global Health.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice told French authorities the U.S. wouldn’t assist in any investigation of Musk and X, something that wasn’t a surprise given the billionaire oligarch’s ties to the Trump regime.

“This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the April letter said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

X didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed Thursday about whether Musk planned on traveling to France. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.

#French #Prosecutors #Elon #Musk #Linda #Yaccarino #Face #Preliminary #ChargesElon Musk,Grok">French Prosecutors Want Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino to Face Preliminary Charges
                French prosecutors who are investigating Elon Musk and his social media platform X have summoned the billionaire to France to face preliminary charges. The investigation is now officially a criminal probe, according to French officials. France opened a probe in 2025 to investigate whether X has violated French law, an investigation that has expanded following incidents last year when Musk’s AI chatbot Grok started denying the Holocaust, praising Hitler, and allegedly generating child sexual abuse material when prompted by users. According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been asked to travel to France to face preliminary charges. As the Journal explains, after preliminary charges have been filed in France, an investigating magistrate starts a process that can take months and doesn’t necessarily mean a trial will be held. It’s entirely possible that the case could ultimately be dropped.

 French authorities are looking into the “complicity” of Musk in creating sexual abuse images of minors and sexually explicit deepfakes, according to the Associated Press. Grok also allegedly spread misinformation in French, including a claim that Auschwitz wasn’t a death camp during the Holocaust but was used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.” Musk purchased Twitter in late 2022 and changed the name to X. The billionaire made many changes to the platform, stripping away safeguards that allowed people to know when an account was verified, and inviting back far-right figures who had previously been banned. Musk welcomed users like white supremacist Nick Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, among a host of others.

 Musk also tinkered with the site in ways that turned it into a hotbed of far-right extremism and pro-Trump propaganda in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. Musk donated over 0 million to Republicans in the 2024 cycle and even ran a program that paid some voters in swing states up to  million to sign a “petition,” a move that was just very clearly an attempt at paying people to vote for Trump.

 Musk, who is currently worth 3 billion, was rewarded with a job overseeing the dismantling of agencies in the federal government under the auspices of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Ultimately, about 300,000 government workers lost their jobs, and USAID was unlawfully dissolved. The cuts to global aid are estimated to lead to 23 million deaths by the year 2030, according to an analysis by The Lancet Global Health. Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice told French authorities the U.S. wouldn’t assist in any investigation of Musk and X, something that wasn’t a surprise given the billionaire oligarch’s ties to the Trump regime.

 “This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the April letter said, according to the Wall Street Journal. X didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed Thursday about whether Musk planned on traveling to France. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.      #French #Prosecutors #Elon #Musk #Linda #Yaccarino #Face #Preliminary #ChargesElon Musk,Grok

Wall Street Journal, Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been asked to travel to France to face preliminary charges. As the Journal explains, after preliminary charges have been filed in France, an investigating magistrate starts a process that can take months and doesn’t necessarily mean a trial will be held. It’s entirely possible that the case could ultimately be dropped.

French authorities are looking into the “complicity” of Musk in creating sexual abuse images of minors and sexually explicit deepfakes, according to the Associated Press. Grok also allegedly spread misinformation in French, including a claim that Auschwitz wasn’t a death camp during the Holocaust but was used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.”

Musk purchased Twitter in late 2022 and changed the name to X. The billionaire made many changes to the platform, stripping away safeguards that allowed people to know when an account was verified, and inviting back far-right figures who had previously been banned. Musk welcomed users like white supremacist Nick Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, among a host of others.

Musk also tinkered with the site in ways that turned it into a hotbed of far-right extremism and pro-Trump propaganda in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. Musk donated over $290 million to Republicans in the 2024 cycle and even ran a program that paid some voters in swing states up to $1 million to sign a “petition,” a move that was just very clearly an attempt at paying people to vote for Trump.

Musk, who is currently worth $803 billion, was rewarded with a job overseeing the dismantling of agencies in the federal government under the auspices of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Ultimately, about 300,000 government workers lost their jobs, and USAID was unlawfully dissolved. The cuts to global aid are estimated to lead to 23 million deaths by the year 2030, according to an analysis by The Lancet Global Health.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice told French authorities the U.S. wouldn’t assist in any investigation of Musk and X, something that wasn’t a surprise given the billionaire oligarch’s ties to the Trump regime.

“This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the April letter said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

X didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed Thursday about whether Musk planned on traveling to France. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.

#French #Prosecutors #Elon #Musk #Linda #Yaccarino #Face #Preliminary #ChargesElon Musk,Grok">French Prosecutors Want Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino to Face Preliminary ChargesFrench Prosecutors Want Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino to Face Preliminary Charges
                French prosecutors who are investigating Elon Musk and his social media platform X have summoned the billionaire to France to face preliminary charges. The investigation is now officially a criminal probe, according to French officials. France opened a probe in 2025 to investigate whether X has violated French law, an investigation that has expanded following incidents last year when Musk’s AI chatbot Grok started denying the Holocaust, praising Hitler, and allegedly generating child sexual abuse material when prompted by users. According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been asked to travel to France to face preliminary charges. As the Journal explains, after preliminary charges have been filed in France, an investigating magistrate starts a process that can take months and doesn’t necessarily mean a trial will be held. It’s entirely possible that the case could ultimately be dropped.

 French authorities are looking into the “complicity” of Musk in creating sexual abuse images of minors and sexually explicit deepfakes, according to the Associated Press. Grok also allegedly spread misinformation in French, including a claim that Auschwitz wasn’t a death camp during the Holocaust but was used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.” Musk purchased Twitter in late 2022 and changed the name to X. The billionaire made many changes to the platform, stripping away safeguards that allowed people to know when an account was verified, and inviting back far-right figures who had previously been banned. Musk welcomed users like white supremacist Nick Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, among a host of others.

 Musk also tinkered with the site in ways that turned it into a hotbed of far-right extremism and pro-Trump propaganda in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. Musk donated over $290 million to Republicans in the 2024 cycle and even ran a program that paid some voters in swing states up to $1 million to sign a “petition,” a move that was just very clearly an attempt at paying people to vote for Trump.

 Musk, who is currently worth $803 billion, was rewarded with a job overseeing the dismantling of agencies in the federal government under the auspices of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Ultimately, about 300,000 government workers lost their jobs, and USAID was unlawfully dissolved. The cuts to global aid are estimated to lead to 23 million deaths by the year 2030, according to an analysis by The Lancet Global Health. Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice told French authorities the U.S. wouldn’t assist in any investigation of Musk and X, something that wasn’t a surprise given the billionaire oligarch’s ties to the Trump regime.

 “This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the April letter said, according to the Wall Street Journal. X didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed Thursday about whether Musk planned on traveling to France. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.      #French #Prosecutors #Elon #Musk #Linda #Yaccarino #Face #Preliminary #ChargesElon Musk,Grok

French prosecutors who are investigating Elon Musk and his social media platform X have summoned the billionaire to France to face preliminary charges. The investigation is now officially a criminal probe, according to French officials.

France opened a probe in 2025 to investigate whether X has violated French law, an investigation that has expanded following incidents last year when Musk’s AI chatbot Grok started denying the Holocaust, praising Hitler, and allegedly generating child sexual abuse material when prompted by users.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been asked to travel to France to face preliminary charges. As the Journal explains, after preliminary charges have been filed in France, an investigating magistrate starts a process that can take months and doesn’t necessarily mean a trial will be held. It’s entirely possible that the case could ultimately be dropped.

French authorities are looking into the “complicity” of Musk in creating sexual abuse images of minors and sexually explicit deepfakes, according to the Associated Press. Grok also allegedly spread misinformation in French, including a claim that Auschwitz wasn’t a death camp during the Holocaust but was used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.”

Musk purchased Twitter in late 2022 and changed the name to X. The billionaire made many changes to the platform, stripping away safeguards that allowed people to know when an account was verified, and inviting back far-right figures who had previously been banned. Musk welcomed users like white supremacist Nick Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, among a host of others.

Musk also tinkered with the site in ways that turned it into a hotbed of far-right extremism and pro-Trump propaganda in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. Musk donated over $290 million to Republicans in the 2024 cycle and even ran a program that paid some voters in swing states up to $1 million to sign a “petition,” a move that was just very clearly an attempt at paying people to vote for Trump.

Musk, who is currently worth $803 billion, was rewarded with a job overseeing the dismantling of agencies in the federal government under the auspices of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Ultimately, about 300,000 government workers lost their jobs, and USAID was unlawfully dissolved. The cuts to global aid are estimated to lead to 23 million deaths by the year 2030, according to an analysis by The Lancet Global Health.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice told French authorities the U.S. wouldn’t assist in any investigation of Musk and X, something that wasn’t a surprise given the billionaire oligarch’s ties to the Trump regime.

“This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the April letter said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

X didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed Thursday about whether Musk planned on traveling to France. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.

#French #Prosecutors #Elon #Musk #Linda #Yaccarino #Face #Preliminary #ChargesElon Musk,Grok

ransomware gangs and data extortion attacks. But never before, perhaps, has a cyberattack against a single software platform so thoroughly disrupted the daily operations of thousands of schools across the United States.

The widely used digital learning platform Canvas was put into “maintenance mode” on Thursday after its maker, the education tech giant Instructure, suffered a data breach and faced an extortion attempt by attackers using the recognizable moniker “ShinyHunters.” Though the hackers have been advertising the breach and attempting to extract a ransom payment from Instructure since May 1, the situation took on additional immediacy for regular people across the US and beyond on Thursday because the Canvas downtime caused chaos at schools, including those in the midst of finals and end-of-year assignments.

Universities like Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and Georgetown sent alerts to students about the situation in recent days; other institutions, including school districts in at least a dozen states, also appear to have been affected. In a list published by the hackers behind the attack on their ransom-focused dark web site, they claim the breach affected more than 8,800 schools. The exact scale and reach of the breach is currently unclear, though. And the fact that Canvas was down throughout Thursday afternoon and evening further complicated the picture.

In a running incident update log that began on May 1, Steve Proud, Instructure’s chief information security officer, said that the company had “recently experienced a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor.” He added on May 2 that “the information involved” for “users at affected institutions” included names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged by users on the platform.

The situation was ultimately marked as “Resolved” on Wednesday, with Proud writing that “Canvas is fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.” At midday on Thursday, though, the Instructure status page registered an “issue” where “some users are having difficulties logging into Student ePortfolios.” Within a few hours, the company had added another status update: “Instructure has placed Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test in maintenance mode.” Late Thursday evening, the company said that Canvas was available again “for most users.”

TechCrunch reported on Thursday that the hackers launched a secondary wave of attacks, defacing some schools’ Canvas portals by injecting an HTML file to display their own message on the schools’ Canvas login pages. According to The Harvard Crimson, attackers modified the Harvard Canvas login page to show a message that included a list of schools that the hackers claim were impacted by the breach.

The message from attackers “urged schools included on the affected list to consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact the group privately to negotiate a settlement before the end of the day on May 12—or else risk their data being leaked,” The Crimson reported. “It is unclear what information tied to Harvard affiliates was included in the alleged breach.”

Instructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s outages and how they fit into the bigger picture of the breach. But the situation is significant given that a massive trove of student information has potentially been exposed, and the visibility of the incident across the country makes it a key example of a longstanding, yet endlessly escalating problem of data extortion and ransomware attacks.

The ShinyHunters name is associated with massive data dumps and has been linked to the infamous hacker collective known as the Com. But as the constellation of actors has shifted over the years, numerous attackers have taken up the most prominent Com-related monikers. A number of recent attacks have invoked other names, such as Lapsus$, with little or no connection to the original group that operated under the name.

#Canvas #Hack #Kind #Ransomware #Debacleransomware,cybersecurity,malware,hacks,hacking,security,vulnerabilities">The Canvas Hack Is a New Kind of Ransomware DebacleHigher education has long been a target of ransomware gangs and data extortion attacks. But never before, perhaps, has a cyberattack against a single software platform so thoroughly disrupted the daily operations of thousands of schools across the United States.The widely used digital learning platform Canvas was put into “maintenance mode” on Thursday after its maker, the education tech giant Instructure, suffered a data breach and faced an extortion attempt by attackers using the recognizable moniker “ShinyHunters.” Though the hackers have been advertising the breach and attempting to extract a ransom payment from Instructure since May 1, the situation took on additional immediacy for regular people across the US and beyond on Thursday because the Canvas downtime caused chaos at schools, including those in the midst of finals and end-of-year assignments.Universities like Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and Georgetown sent alerts to students about the situation in recent days; other institutions, including school districts in at least a dozen states, also appear to have been affected. In a list published by the hackers behind the attack on their ransom-focused dark web site, they claim the breach affected more than 8,800 schools. The exact scale and reach of the breach is currently unclear, though. And the fact that Canvas was down throughout Thursday afternoon and evening further complicated the picture.In a running incident update log that began on May 1, Steve Proud, Instructure’s chief information security officer, said that the company had “recently experienced a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor.” He added on May 2 that “the information involved” for “users at affected institutions” included names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged by users on the platform.The situation was ultimately marked as “Resolved” on Wednesday, with Proud writing that “Canvas is fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.” At midday on Thursday, though, the Instructure status page registered an “issue” where “some users are having difficulties logging into Student ePortfolios.” Within a few hours, the company had added another status update: “Instructure has placed Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test in maintenance mode.” Late Thursday evening, the company said that Canvas was available again “for most users.”TechCrunch reported on Thursday that the hackers launched a secondary wave of attacks, defacing some schools’ Canvas portals by injecting an HTML file to display their own message on the schools’ Canvas login pages. According to The Harvard Crimson, attackers modified the Harvard Canvas login page to show a message that included a list of schools that the hackers claim were impacted by the breach.The message from attackers “urged schools included on the affected list to consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact the group privately to negotiate a settlement before the end of the day on May 12—or else risk their data being leaked,” The Crimson reported. “It is unclear what information tied to Harvard affiliates was included in the alleged breach.”Instructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s outages and how they fit into the bigger picture of the breach. But the situation is significant given that a massive trove of student information has potentially been exposed, and the visibility of the incident across the country makes it a key example of a longstanding, yet endlessly escalating problem of data extortion and ransomware attacks.The ShinyHunters name is associated with massive data dumps and has been linked to the infamous hacker collective known as the Com. But as the constellation of actors has shifted over the years, numerous attackers have taken up the most prominent Com-related monikers. A number of recent attacks have invoked other names, such as Lapsus$, with little or no connection to the original group that operated under the name.#Canvas #Hack #Kind #Ransomware #Debacleransomware,cybersecurity,malware,hacks,hacking,security,vulnerabilities

gangs and data extortion attacks. But never before, perhaps, has a cyberattack against a single software platform so thoroughly disrupted the daily operations of thousands of schools across the United States.

The widely used digital learning platform Canvas was put into “maintenance mode” on Thursday after its maker, the education tech giant Instructure, suffered a data breach and faced an extortion attempt by attackers using the recognizable moniker “ShinyHunters.” Though the hackers have been advertising the breach and attempting to extract a ransom payment from Instructure since May 1, the situation took on additional immediacy for regular people across the US and beyond on Thursday because the Canvas downtime caused chaos at schools, including those in the midst of finals and end-of-year assignments.

Universities like Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and Georgetown sent alerts to students about the situation in recent days; other institutions, including school districts in at least a dozen states, also appear to have been affected. In a list published by the hackers behind the attack on their ransom-focused dark web site, they claim the breach affected more than 8,800 schools. The exact scale and reach of the breach is currently unclear, though. And the fact that Canvas was down throughout Thursday afternoon and evening further complicated the picture.

In a running incident update log that began on May 1, Steve Proud, Instructure’s chief information security officer, said that the company had “recently experienced a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor.” He added on May 2 that “the information involved” for “users at affected institutions” included names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged by users on the platform.

The situation was ultimately marked as “Resolved” on Wednesday, with Proud writing that “Canvas is fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.” At midday on Thursday, though, the Instructure status page registered an “issue” where “some users are having difficulties logging into Student ePortfolios.” Within a few hours, the company had added another status update: “Instructure has placed Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test in maintenance mode.” Late Thursday evening, the company said that Canvas was available again “for most users.”

TechCrunch reported on Thursday that the hackers launched a secondary wave of attacks, defacing some schools’ Canvas portals by injecting an HTML file to display their own message on the schools’ Canvas login pages. According to The Harvard Crimson, attackers modified the Harvard Canvas login page to show a message that included a list of schools that the hackers claim were impacted by the breach.

The message from attackers “urged schools included on the affected list to consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact the group privately to negotiate a settlement before the end of the day on May 12—or else risk their data being leaked,” The Crimson reported. “It is unclear what information tied to Harvard affiliates was included in the alleged breach.”

Instructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s outages and how they fit into the bigger picture of the breach. But the situation is significant given that a massive trove of student information has potentially been exposed, and the visibility of the incident across the country makes it a key example of a longstanding, yet endlessly escalating problem of data extortion and ransomware attacks.

The ShinyHunters name is associated with massive data dumps and has been linked to the infamous hacker collective known as the Com. But as the constellation of actors has shifted over the years, numerous attackers have taken up the most prominent Com-related monikers. A number of recent attacks have invoked other names, such as Lapsus$, with little or no connection to the original group that operated under the name.

#Canvas #Hack #Kind #Ransomware #Debacleransomware,cybersecurity,malware,hacks,hacking,security,vulnerabilities">The Canvas Hack Is a New Kind of Ransomware Debacle

Higher education has long been a target of ransomware gangs and data extortion attacks. But never before, perhaps, has a cyberattack against a single software platform so thoroughly disrupted the daily operations of thousands of schools across the United States.

The widely used digital learning platform Canvas was put into “maintenance mode” on Thursday after its maker, the education tech giant Instructure, suffered a data breach and faced an extortion attempt by attackers using the recognizable moniker “ShinyHunters.” Though the hackers have been advertising the breach and attempting to extract a ransom payment from Instructure since May 1, the situation took on additional immediacy for regular people across the US and beyond on Thursday because the Canvas downtime caused chaos at schools, including those in the midst of finals and end-of-year assignments.

Universities like Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and Georgetown sent alerts to students about the situation in recent days; other institutions, including school districts in at least a dozen states, also appear to have been affected. In a list published by the hackers behind the attack on their ransom-focused dark web site, they claim the breach affected more than 8,800 schools. The exact scale and reach of the breach is currently unclear, though. And the fact that Canvas was down throughout Thursday afternoon and evening further complicated the picture.

In a running incident update log that began on May 1, Steve Proud, Instructure’s chief information security officer, said that the company had “recently experienced a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor.” He added on May 2 that “the information involved” for “users at affected institutions” included names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged by users on the platform.

The situation was ultimately marked as “Resolved” on Wednesday, with Proud writing that “Canvas is fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.” At midday on Thursday, though, the Instructure status page registered an “issue” where “some users are having difficulties logging into Student ePortfolios.” Within a few hours, the company had added another status update: “Instructure has placed Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test in maintenance mode.” Late Thursday evening, the company said that Canvas was available again “for most users.”

TechCrunch reported on Thursday that the hackers launched a secondary wave of attacks, defacing some schools’ Canvas portals by injecting an HTML file to display their own message on the schools’ Canvas login pages. According to The Harvard Crimson, attackers modified the Harvard Canvas login page to show a message that included a list of schools that the hackers claim were impacted by the breach.

The message from attackers “urged schools included on the affected list to consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact the group privately to negotiate a settlement before the end of the day on May 12—or else risk their data being leaked,” The Crimson reported. “It is unclear what information tied to Harvard affiliates was included in the alleged breach.”

Instructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s outages and how they fit into the bigger picture of the breach. But the situation is significant given that a massive trove of student information has potentially been exposed, and the visibility of the incident across the country makes it a key example of a longstanding, yet endlessly escalating problem of data extortion and ransomware attacks.

The ShinyHunters name is associated with massive data dumps and has been linked to the infamous hacker collective known as the Com. But as the constellation of actors has shifted over the years, numerous attackers have taken up the most prominent Com-related monikers. A number of recent attacks have invoked other names, such as Lapsus$, with little or no connection to the original group that operated under the name.

#Canvas #Hack #Kind #Ransomware #Debacleransomware,cybersecurity,malware,hacks,hacking,security,vulnerabilities

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