School website hacked, police report lodged
Meridian Secondary School has filed a police report after hackers broke into a website for a competition organised by the school.
In a statement yesterday, the school said its Young Illustrator Award website was hacked on Aug 29.
The vendor managing the website told the school about the incident the next day, and Meridian Secondary immediately worked with the vendor to take the website down as a safety precaution.
It also made a police report and is working closely with the relevant authorities to resolve the matter.
All those who were registered on the website were asked to change their passwords and alert the school if they noticed any suspicious activity.
The school said none of its other systems were affected as the art contest website was a stand-alone system.
The website - siglap-youngillustratorawards.com - hosted an online art competition open to primary and secondary school students.
It asked for information such as participants' names, schools, home addresses and mobile phone numbers.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said it launched an investigation immediately after it was notified of the hacking.
Preliminary findings show that the breach is "fairly contained".
"No personally identifiable data had been compromised," said MOE.
It added that such attacks cannot be taken lightly, and it will continue to "share best practices in cyber security with all schools, to better equip them to safeguard personal and classified data under their care".
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