MOE orders Mobile Guardian app removal after 13,000 S'pore students get devices wiped remotely

A global cybersecurity incident involving the device management application Mobile Guardian affected about 13,000 Singapore secondary school students who had their personal learning devices wiped remotely on Aug. 4.

This was disclosed by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in an Aug. 5 release.

MOE also said that, as a precaution, it will remove the application from all iPads and Chromebooks used by students as learning devices.

Global cybersecurity incident

In the release, MOE said that on the night of Aug. 4, it was alerted by schools that some students who use iPads or Chromebooks as personal learning devices were unable to access their applications and information stored in their devices.

MOE immediately registered strong concerns with the mobile device management company Mobile Guardian.

"Mobile Guardian’s investigations found that there had been a global cybersecurity incident involving unauthorised access to its platform that affected their customers globally, including those in Singapore," MOE said.

MOE's preliminary checks revealed that the perpetrator remotely wiped the devices of about 13,000 students in Singapore from 26 secondary schools.

There is currently no evidence that the perpetrator had accessed user files, MOE added.

App to be removed from students' learning devices

As a precaution, MOE will remove the Mobile Guardian application from all iPads and Chromebooks.

Efforts are underway to safely restore these devices to normal usage, MOE said.

Meanwhile, other mitigating measures are being considered to regulate device usage and support learning during this period.

"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," MOE added.

Previous issues with the platform

The Mobile Guardian device management platform was appointed to be an official vendor for MOE schools in 2020.

The platform allows schools to manage and secure thousands of mobile devices distributed to students and comes with classroom management tools and parental controls.

In April, MOE lodged a police report after a data breach incident at Mobile Guardian's headquarters, which resulted in the personal info of parents and staff from 127 MOE schools being accessed.

In end-July, students also reported technical issues with the platform, such as not being able to connect to Wi-Fi or losing their saved notes, according to The Straits Times.

These issues affected more than 1,000 students from at least five MOE schools, many of whom reverted to using pen and paper for note-taking and assignments, ST reported.

MOE noted in the release that the Aug. 4 security incident is not related to the earlier technical issues faced by students at the end of July 2024.

"Mobile Guardian’s investigations have revealed that the July incident, which led to some students across numerous schools experiencing issues connecting to the Internet and/or receiving error messages, was due to a human error in configuration by Mobile Guardian," MOE said.

Top image from Canva & Mobile Guardian / YouTube