Singapore's Ministry of Education has decided to remove the Mobile Guardian from students' devices, following a hacking attack.
The breach affected about 13,000 secondary school students in Singapore. Students from 26 schools saw devices remotely turned off by the hacker.
The Mobile Guardian app is a device management platform, installed on personal devices used by students. It enables parents to control device usage by restricting specific apps, websites, and screen time.
See related: Frankfurt University was attacked by hackers
In a statement released to the media on Monday (August 5), the Ministry of Education (MOE) said that students from some schools using iPads or Chromebooks as personal learning devices were having difficulty accessing the apps and information stored on them.
"The Ministry of Education immediately expressed strong concerns with the mobile device management company Mobile Guardian," the ministry said.
“Mobile Guardian’s investigations have uncovered a global cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to its platform, affecting customers around the world, including those in Singapore.”
Mobile Guardian announced that it was notified of suspicious activity on its platform at 10:00 PM Singapore time. It detected unauthorized access to iOS and ChromeOS devices registered on its platform.
It affected users around the world, including North America, Europe, and Singapore.
This led to a small percentage of devices being removed from Mobile Guardian registration, with their devices being remotely wiped.
"There is no evidence to suggest that the hacker had access to user data," Mobile Guardian said on its website.
Mobile Guardian announced that it has suspended its services in order to prevent any further unauthorized access.
Read more: United Kingdom: School closed due to cyberattack
"As a precautionary measure, the Singapore Ministry of Education has announced that it will uninstall the Mobile Guardian Management App from all iPads and Chromebooks."
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Efforts are underway to safely return these devices to normal use. The Ministry of Education is considering additional measures to regulate the use of devices in order to support learning during this period.
He also pointed out that this incident is not related to the previous technical problems that students encountered in late July, which were caused by human error in the Mobile Guardian configuration
"We fully understand the students' concern and anguish regarding the incident," said the Minister of Education.
The Ministry of Education is working with schools to support affected students, including developing additional IT teams and providing additional learning resources.
See also: Pulaski County Public School victim of cyberattacks
This incident follows a similar one in April, when the personal details of parents and staff members from 127 schools were made accessible via Mobile Guardian, which apparently indicates a data security breach
Source: channelnewsasia
