CBSE denies OSM portal hacking claims
What's the story
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has dismissed allegations of a security breach on its On-Screen Marking (OSM) portal. The board clarified that the URL mentioned in viral social media posts was merely a testing site, not the actual platform used for evaluating board exam answer sheets. "The Portal used for evaluation of answer-books bore a different URL, which has neither been compromised nor does it have the vulnerabilities indicated in the said social media post," CBSE said.
Hacking claims
'Critical vulnerabilities' in system
The clarification comes after a user named "Nisarga" claimed to have hacked into CBSE's OSM portal. Describing himself as a cybersecurity researcher and Class 12 student, Nisarga alleged he found "critical vulnerabilities" in the system. He claimed he could access examiner accounts, reset passwords, and change marks due to these flaws. However, CBSE rejected these allegations, maintaining that their actual evaluation system has strong safeguards and grievance redressal mechanisms.
CBSE
'Didn't get response'
After uncovering the vulnerabilities, Adhikary said he emailed several authorities, including Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and other government-linked cybersecurity contacts, but received no proper response. "It's very disrespectful, to be honest, to not get...response after following up several times," he said. The portal was down for the next three days, and Adhikary stated that only one glitch was fixed during that time. He flagged six high-severity vulnerabilities that remained on the site, including one involving the master password.
Glitch controversy
Technical glitches in post-result services
The controversy comes amid criticism over technical glitches in CBSE's post-result services. A Class 12 student, Vedant Shrivastava, alleged that his Physics answer sheet was mixed up during the photocopy access process. He claimed the handwriting and presentation were different from his own. Later, CBSE confirmed a technical glitch and sent the correct answer sheet to Vedant's registered email address. "We were correct on our claims and the answer sheet indeed got exchanged," Vedant said in an update.
System overhaul
Minister meets bank officials over payment issues
On Tuesday, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan intervened over complaints of issues with CBSE's payment gateway system. He met officials of four public sector banks to discuss improving the payment ecosystem for services like re-evaluation and obtaining photocopies of answer sheets. The banks, including State Bank of India and Canara Bank, assured they would work with the CBSE to strengthen the infrastructure with better technical safeguards and monitoring systems.