All devices affected by Mobile Guardian issues to be fixed by Aug 16: MOE

SINGAPORE - The last of all affected devices by Mobile Guardian's glitch and cyber-security breach will be fixed by Aug 16 as schools double down on restoration, with priority given to students taking their national examinations in 2024, said the Ministry of Education (MOE).

These are O-level and N-level students.

"We aim to attend to the remaining affected devices by the end of next week," said MOE in its reply to questions from The Straits Times.

MOE said it has been working with schools to restore affected devices to normal usage. It has also deployed additional IT engineers to schools to help students restore their devices, and provided students who wish to troubleshoot their own devices with instruction sheets to guide them along.

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. Affected students had all their apps remotely wiped out, with some students losing years' worth of notes.

Investigations by Mobile Guardian found that there was a cyber-security incident involving unauthorised access to its platform that affected customers globally. The cyber attack hit about 13,000 students from 26 secondary schools here.

The security incident on Aug 4 is separate from technical issues that students faced as early as July 30, which were due to human error in configuration by Mobile Guardian. Students reported trouble connecting to Wi-Fi, accessing their notes and turning their iPads on and off.

On Aug 5, MOE announced that the Mobile Guardian app would be removed from all students' personal learning devices as a precautionary measure.

"To date, we have been able to fully restore information on devices that have been backed up on the cloud," said MOE. "There is a small fraction of devices where information stored locally was not backed up and is not recoverable."

It is working with schools to provide these students with additional support, including providing hardcopy resources and encouraging students to share their notes with those affected.

A Methodist Girls' School Secondary 4 student, who lost access to her iPad in late July, said she recovered all her notes on Aug 7.

"I'm so glad that my classmates and I were able to get our notes back. We thought it was over for all of us," she said. Her O-level preliminary exams started on Aug 2. They will last until end-August.

Many students also rallied around affected classmates by sharing their notes, said MOE.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.