CBSE Breaks Silence on Data Privacy Row Under Fire From Teenage Hackers, Admits and Patches Portal Vulnerabilitie

Amid  mounting data security concerns, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) confirmed on Sunday (May 31st, 2026) that it is actively monitoring and addressing vulnerabilities in its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.

The admission comes in the wake of independent security researchers and alert citizens flagging severe weaknesses in the board's digital evaluation network leading to a national debate over student data privacy.

In an official statement issued via X (formerly Twitter), CBSE revealed that an elite team of cybersecurity professionals from various government intelligence agencies and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has spent the last several days patching the system.

According to the board, the most critical "vulnerabilities have been contained," and rigorous stress tests are underway to eliminate any remaining exploitable backdoors. To prevent future interference, CBSE is transitioning the portal to a highly secure, isolated server infrastructure.

In an unexpected turn, the central board explicitly thanked the ethical hacking community for bringing the flaws to light, saying, "CBSE thanks alert citizens and ethical hackers who brought potential security issues to its attention. The board has already contacted some of these individuals directly and appreciated their role in helping improve the system’s security."

The board has openly invited other white-hat researchers who identify security flaws to securely transmit their findings directly to the board’s internal security desk via official emails

Ongoing Re-Evaluation Fiasco

The data security fallout coincides with an already chaotic post-result re-evaluation phase for CBSE students. Over the last week, thousands of candidates have flooded online portals complaining of severe technical glitches, wildly fluctuating processing fees, and blurred scans.

More alarmingly, multiple students have publicly alleged that the scanned answer scripts returned to them by the board during the verification process contained handwriting that did not match their own—intensifying pressure on the board to prove its digital infrastructure hasn't compromised the academic records of millions of students.

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