CBSE re-evaluation portal faces new cyber security challenges

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday claimed that its newly launched re-evaluation and verification portal for Class 12 answer sheets was subjected to a sustained wave of cyberattacks.

“While thousands of students accessed the CBSE re-evaluation portal today, malicious actors tried to disrupt services through a barrage of cyber-attacks. The most recent was a denial of service attack causing 1.5 million hits on the portal within 2 minutes and more than 1 lakh unauthorised file access attempts… By 3 pm, more than 8,000 users were simultaneously active on the platform, while over 16,000 students had successfully submitted applications for re-evaluation and verification of their answer sheets.” the board posted on X. The board further claimed that its cyber security teams made real-time updates based on student feedback.

Applications for verification, photocopying answer sheets, and re-evaluation are open until June 6.

The standard fees are Rs 100 per answer book for photocopying and Rs 25 per question for re-evaluation. CBSE provided step-by-step guides and set up an email support channel for students with login or session issues.

The re-evaluation portal was introduced for the 2026 Class 12 exams, after nearly one in every four Class 12 students sought scanned copies of their answer sheets. Reported problems included missing pages, unchecked answers, and errors in the On Screen Marking (OSM) system.

Earlier, a 19-year-old Class 12 student named Nisarga Adhikary from West Bengal broke into the OSM test portal in under 30 minutes and exposed vulnerabilities. He said he could create, read, update and delete data, had shell access on the servers, and found master passwords that could bypass OTP verification. Adhikary reported these security problems to CERT-In, CBSE, and the Ministry of Education. CBSE maintained until very recently that exams are held offline and are unaffected. Further, it claimed that only evaluators could access the OSM portal and said the vulnerabilities had been fixed. Adhikary, however, kept sharing documentation of the alleged flaws.

In late May, an incident disrupted the re-evaluation portal’s payment system, affecting about 50 student transactions. Payment issues led to refunds and a temporary shutdown. Authorities confirmed there were unauthorised logins and delayed the full re-evaluation rollout.