Hacker remotely wipes 13,000 mobile devices of MDM supplier

Mobile Guardian, a company specializing in security and educational software for the education sector, has recently experienced a ‘security incident’ involving unauthorized access.

According to the company’s press release, Mobile Guardian suffered a security breach on August 4. An unknown attacker was able to access the company’s mobile device management (MDM) network.

While the hacker was snooping around, he remotely wiped “a small percentage” of iOS and Chrome devices, which were intended for elementary schools and other educational institutions.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the perpetrator had access to users’ data,” the MDM-supplier says.

As a precaution to prevent further access to its network, Mobile Guardian has suspended its services for now. Users aren’t able to log in to the platform and students are experiencing restricted access to their devices. In order to reactivate their devices, students will have to get in touch with their local IT administrator.

Mobile Guardian points out that the security incident is not related to a configuration error that occurred on July 30, which only affected the company’s Singapore instance.

“We want to assure you that we are not taking this matter lightly. Our team is working tirelessly to restore the expected functionality to affected devices,” the company promises.

The Ministry of Education in Singapore is one of Mobile Guardian’s prominent clients: the company delivers and protects all of the iPads and Chromebooks in the country’s secondary schools. In a statement the department says it was alerted of the security incident.

“Based on preliminary checks, about 13,000 students in Singapore from 26 secondary schools had their devices wiped remotely by the perpetrator. There is currently no evidence that the perpetrator had accessed user files,” the Ministry of Education states.

Mobile Guardian is a ‘Google for Education’ partner and an international MDM supplier with customers in the United Kingdom, the United States, the EMEA, and the Asia Pacific region. The company offers cross-platform device management and parental monitoring and control to create safe online experiences for their children on their devices.