Data unrecoverable on 'small fraction' of student devices affected by Mobile Guardian issues: MOE

SINGAPORE: Information on a "small fraction" of students' personal learning devices is not recoverable, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said in an update on the Mobile Guardian hacking incident.

"There is a small fraction of devices where information stored locally was not backed up and is not recoverable," it said on Wednesday (Aug 7) .

The ministry 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, it said in a statement. 

The Education Ministry has been able to fully restore information on personal learning devices that were backed up on the cloud, it added. 

Providing an update on the incident that took place on Sunday night, MOE said that it has been working closely with schools to restore affected devices, prioritising students sitting for their national examinations this year.

“We are encouraged to see a sense of community among our students as many of them came together and rallied round their affected classmates to provide for both emotional and practical support such as sharing of their notes.” 

MOE previously announced that the Mobile Guardian application would be removed from all students' personal learning devices after a global cybersecurity breach affected about 13,000 secondary school students from 26 secondary schools in Singapore. 

The students had their devices wiped remotely by the perpetrator, and many were worried about losing access to their notes with the looming exams. 

Mobile Guardian is a device management app installed on personal learning devices used by students. It enables parents to manage students’ device usage by restricting applications or websites and screen time. 

Additional IT engineers have been deployed to schools to help students restore their devices, said MOE on Wednesday. 

“Students who wish to troubleshoot their own devices have also been provided with instruction sheets. We aim to attend to the remaining affected devices by the end of next week.” 

Students CNA spoke to previously about the Mobile Guardian incident have since recovered their notes. 

Mitchell (not his real name), a Secondary 2 student at Riverside Secondary School, said that the school announced on Thursday morning that the personal learning devices will be reset in the next two weeks.

While he is still waiting for his iPad to be restored, many other classes have already started the process, he told CNA. 

Esther (not her real name), a Secondary 4 student at Methodist Girls' School, said IT engineers working with MOE visited the school on Thursday.

She managed to find her notes after using her personal Apple ID to download the notetaking app again.

"Luckily, all the documents were still inside," she said. 

"(I'm) relieved and very happy that we could get it back, which meant we didn't need to rewrite our notes. I personally ... felt like a heavy weight was lifted off of me."