MOE to remove Mobile Guardian app from students’ devices after hacking incident

MOE said through Mobile Guardian’s investigations, it found that there had been a “global cybersecurity incident” involving unauthorised access to its platform, which affected customers, including those in Singapore.

Preliminary checks showed that about 13,000 students from 26 secondary schools in Singapore had their devices wiped remotely by the hacker.

The ministry added that there is currently no evidence that the hacker has accessed user files. 

“As a precautionary measure, MOE will remove the Mobile Guardian Device Management Application from all iPads and Chromebooks,” said MOE.

“Efforts are underway to safely restore these devices to normal usage. MOE is considering other mitigating measures to regulate device usage to support learning during this period.”

MOE noted that Sunday’s incident was not related to earlier technical issues students faced at the end of July due to a human error in configuration by Mobile Guardian.

“We understand that students are naturally concerned and anxious about the incident,” said MOE.

“MOE is working with schools to support affected students, including deploying additional IT roving teams to schools and providing additional learning resources.”

The incident comes after a similar one in April, when the personal information of parents and staff from 127 schools was accessed through Mobile Guardian in a data security breach.