Access report: strange and suspicious (?) activity logged as an instructor.

[lfrigo]

Today I wanted to peek at something in my course access report as an instructor (through People).

To my surprise, I found that at 12:11 a.m. yesterday, there was record of me accessing 120+ items in the class all at exactly the same time. There was no rhyme or reason to what was accessed - old stuff, new, published, unpublished, pages, videos, discussions, quizzes, etc. I may have been online at the time, but there is no way that I opened all those items, particularly not all within a 1-minute time frame.

Looking at my other classes, I see the same thing happening but at 11:40 p.m., 11:41 p.m., and 12:12 a.m. on the same day. Then another class it was back on April 2.

If this is a weird glitch, I'm fine with that. But I'm concerned that it could be some kind of security issue - could there be some sort of bot going through my account?

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @lfrigo,

I would recommend that you contact your Canvas team and ask them to review your Canvas page views at the times that you mentioned. Canvas page views are only available to Canvas administrators with the appropriate level of access.

If they find anything concerning, they will provide you with guidance on how to proceed.

If you are willing, please come back and let us know what it was.

-Doug

[Gabriel33]

Your local Canvas/IT team may also see the IP address and user agent that accessed it, which can help identify if it was you or one of your devices.

Also, please change your password whenever something like this happens.

[lfrigo]

As a follow up:  I  had consulted with my local learning tech. One of the techs said she went in and saw the same on her access reports and did not think it was a security issue, "My best guess is that Canvas can be or was glitchy at these times, and/or that the tracking of each "page touch" is done in bulk after the fact, rather than as each individual touch." We both noticed that the day/time for the bulk access reports changed over time (becoming more recent).