All student devices hit by Mobile Guardian issues to be fixed by Aug 16

The last of all devices affected 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).

- Gabrielle Chan

These include O- and N-level students.

"We aim to attend to the remaining affected devices by the end of next week," said MOE on Aug 7 in response 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 provide 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 about students with iPads or Chromebooks losing access to their apps and data. Affected students had all apps remotely wiped, with some losing years of notes.

Investigations by Mobile Guardian found that there was a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorised access to its platform that affected customers globally, hitting about 13,000 students from 26 secondary schools here.

The security incident on Aug 4 is separate from earlier technical issues starting on July 30, caused by al Mobile Guardian configuration error. Then, students reported Wi-Fi connection problems, access issues and trouble with their iPads.