SINGAPORE: The Mobile Guardian app will be removed from all students’ personal learning devices, after a global cyber-security breach affected 13,000 students from 26 secondary schools in Singapore.
In a statement on Aug 5, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said the app will be removed from all iPads and Chromebooks as a precautionary measure, and that efforts are underway to safely restore these devices for normal use.
Mobile Guardian is a device management app that helps parents manage their children’s device use, restricting screen time and access to specific websites and apps.
MOE said it was alerted by some schools late at night on Aug 4 that some students who use iPads or Chromebooks were unable to access their applications and information stored in their devices.
Investigations by Mobile Guardian found that there was a cyber-security incident involving unauthorised access to its platform that affected customers globally, including those in Singapore, MOE said.
Affected students had their devices remotely wiped due to the breach, MOE said, adding that there is no evidence that students’ files were accessed.
“We understand that students are naturally concerned and anxious about the incident. MOE is working with schools to support affected students, including deploying additional IT roving teams to schools and providing additional learning resources,” the ministry said.
MOE said the security incident on Aug 4 is separate from earlier technical issues faced by students at the end of July 2024.
The Straits Times reported earlier that more than 1,000 students from at least five MOE secondary schools were affected by a glitch on the Mobile Guardian app.
As early as July 30, some students reported that they could not turn their iPads on or switch them off, while others could not connect to Wi-Fi and received the error message: “Guided Access app unavailable. Please contact your administrator.”
This glitch was due to a human error in configuration by Mobile Guardian, said MOE.
In a statement on its website on Aug 5, Mobile Guardian said that since the security incident, it has “halted servers in order to prevent further disruption by the perpetrator”.
Mobile Guardian said it was alerted to suspicious activity on its platform and detected unauthorised access to its system at 10pm Singapore time on Aug 4.
It said it is currently investigating the breach that affected users globally, including the United States, Europe and Singapore.
“This resulted in a small percentage of devices to be unenrolled from Mobile Guardian and their devices wiped remotely,” Mobile Guardian said.
Users should contact their local IT administrator to re-activate the device, said Mobile Guardian.
This is the second cyber-security incident involving Mobile Guardian in six months. In April, Mobile Guardian’s user management portal at its headquarters in Surrey, Britain, was hacked, resulting in a data leak involving the names and e-mail addresses of parents and teachers of five primary schools and 122 secondary schools in Singapore. - The Straits Times/ANN
