The education MDM platform Mobile Guardian recently admitted to a cyberattack that disrupted its services. The firm confirmed that the incident also resulted in the wiping of thousands of devices connected to the platform.
Mobile Guardian Platform Pulled Offline Following The Cyberattack
Mobile Guardian, an education-focused mobile device management tool, reportedly suffered a disruptive cyberattack earlier this month.
According to the details shared via its incident report page, the service suffered the cyberattack on August 4, 2024, which they noticed upon detecting an unauthorized activity on their platform. Following this discovery, the firm immediately took the necessary steps to contain the attack.
However, it seems the damage was done by then, as the incident forced the MDM to go offline. The attack resulted in thousands of connected devices being wiped remotely. Moreover, the firm also confirmed that the incident caused numerous students to be unenrolled from Mobile Guardian.
For now, it remains unclear how exactly the incident happened. But the firm confirmed halting its services to prevent further unauthorized access, restricting users’ access on their devices.
Mobile Guardian didn’t mention the exact number of students affected by this cyberattack. Yet, they confirmed that they had found no evidence of the attackers’ possible access to the users’ data.
According to Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE), at least 13,000 devices belonging to students from 26 secondary schools were wiped during this incident.
The Ministry of Education announced removing the MDM from all students’ devices, assuring support for devices’ restoration. As per their statement,
As a precautionary measure, MOE will remove the Mobile Guardian Device Management Application from all iPads and Chromebooks. Efforts are underway to safely restore these devices to normal usage. MOE is considering other mitigating measures to regulate device usage to support learning during this period.
In addition, the MOE assured that it would coordinate with the schools to support affected students by deploying additional IT roving teams and providing learning resources.
While Singapore’s education ministry shared the details publicly, the exact situation of the students from other regions of the world affected by this incident remains unclear.
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