All Mobile Guardian-Related Device Issues Will Be Resolved by August 16, MOE Confirms

SINGAPORE – The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that all devices affected by Mobile Guardian’s glitch and cybersecurity breach will be fully restored by August 16. The restoration process prioritizes students preparing for their national examinations in 2024, specifically O-level and N-level candidates.

“We aim to attend to the remaining affected devices by the end of next week,” stated MOE in response to inquiries from The Straits Times. The ministry has been actively collaborating with schools to ensure that impacted devices are returned to normal operation. Additional IT engineers have been deployed to schools to assist students, and instructional sheets have been provided for those wishing to troubleshoot their devices independently.

Mobile Guardian is a device management application designed to help parents regulate their children’s screen time and manage access to specific websites and applications. MOE was alerted late at night on August 4 by several schools regarding students using iPads or Chromebooks who were unable to access applications and stored information on their devices. Affected students experienced a complete wipe of their applications, leading to the loss of years’ worth of notes.

Investigations by Mobile Guardian revealed a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to its platform, impacting customers worldwide. Approximately 13,000 students from 26 secondary schools in Singapore were affected. The security incident on August 4 was distinct from technical problems that arose as early as July 30, which were attributed to a human error in configuration by Mobile Guardian. Students reported difficulties in connecting to Wi-Fi, accessing notes, and powering their iPads on and off.

As a precautionary measure, MOE announced on August 5 that the Mobile Guardian app would be removed from all students’ personal learning devices. “To date, we have been able to fully restore information on devices that have been backed up on the cloud,” said MOE. “However, there is a small fraction of devices where locally stored information was not backed up and is irretrievable.”

MOE is working closely with schools to provide additional support for these students, including hardcopy resources and encouraging students to share their notes with those who have been affected. A Secondary 4 student from Methodist Girls’ School, who lost access to her iPad in late July, reported recovering all her notes on August 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 shared. Her O-level preliminary exams commenced on August 2 and will continue until the end of the month. Many students rallied to support their affected classmates by sharing their notes, MOE noted.