UPDATE : The Ministry of Education (MOE) reported that a “small fraction” of students’ personal learning devices contained data that is not recoverable following the Mobile Guardian hacking incident.
While information on devices backed up to the cloud has been fully restored, the MOE is providing additional support to affected students, including hardcopy resources and encouraging them to share notes.
“There is a small fraction of devices where information stored locally was not backed up and is not recoverable,” it said on August 7.
WHAT HAPPENED :
In a troubling event, thousands of students in Singapore faced significant disruptions in their learning as a result of a global cybersecurity incident involving Mobile Guardian, a mobile device management company.
Late on the night of 4 August 2024, the Ministry of Education (MOE) was alerted by schools regarding students using iPads and Chromebooks who were unable to access vital applications and information stored on their devices.
Upon investigation, Mobile Guardian confirmed that the incident was the result of unauthorized access to its platform, impacting customers worldwide, including 13,000 students from 26 secondary schools in Singapore.
Preliminary reports indicate that the perpetrators executed remote wipes on the devices, although there has been no evidence that user files were compromised.
“There is currently no evidence that the perpetrator had accessed user files, Ministry of Education (MOE) said in its press release”.
This incident was distinctly separate from earlier technical issues that students experienced in late July, which had caused connectivity problems and error messages across multiple schools.
A photo shared on reddit showcases a staggering number of iPads piled high on a school IT department table, highlighting the impact.
According to MOE, Mobile Guardian has attributed those glitches to human error in device configuration, according to their preliminary findings.
In light of this new security threat, the MOE announced it would be removing the Mobile Guardian Device Management Application from all affected devices. The Ministry stated that efforts are actively being implemented to restore the wiped devices to a state of normal functionality.
Additionally, MOE is exploring alternative measures to regulate device usage and ensure academic continuity during this challenging 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.
Image via google
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