Hackers

A system that thousands of schools and universities use to support instruction was back online Friday after it went down during a cyberattack, creating chaos as students tried to study for finals. The hacking group named ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emisoft. Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said in an update late Thursday that the system was available for most users. An expert says the hacking group posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed.

Microsoft is issuing an emergency fix to close off a vulnerability in Microsoft’s SharePoint software that hackers have exploited to carry out widespread attacks on businesses and at least some federal agencies. The company said in its blog post that it discovered at least dozens of systems were compromised around the world.

Hackers are convenient villains in movies, TV shows, and other forms of pop culture. But across the country, and in Southwest Florida, groups of hackers…