CBSE Faces Scrutiny Over Data Leak Allegations Amid Ongoing Marking Controversy
OSM under fire as CBSE battles data leak claims
The Economic Times
Image: The Economic Times
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is under scrutiny following allegations of a data leak related to its On Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 Boards. Ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary claims unauthorized access to answer sheets, raising concerns about the system's security just before the verification portal opens for over 400,000 students.
- 01Ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary claims that the CBSE's AWS bucket was improperly configured, allowing public access to 2026 answer sheets and question papers.
- 02The Congress party has labeled the situation a 'massive data leak,' jeopardizing the privacy of around 2 million students.
- 03The OSM system, implemented this year, has faced criticism for poor scanning quality, with 68,000 out of 1.7 million answer sheets deemed substandard.
- 04CBSE has acknowledged 'certain discrepancies' in its portal system and has deployed teams from IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras to rectify the issues.
- 05The CBSE's verification and re-evaluation portal is set to open on June 1, amidst ongoing concerns about system integrity and security.
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The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is facing serious allegations regarding its On Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 Boards. Ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary has claimed that the board's Amazon Web Services (AWS) bucket was inadequately configured, allowing unauthorized access to answer sheets and question papers, which has raised significant security concerns. This comes just before the CBSE opens its answer sheet verification and re-evaluation portal for over 400,000 students on June 1. The Congress party has criticized the CBSE, calling it a 'massive data leak' that threatens the privacy of about 20 lakh students. The OSM system, introduced this year, has already been criticized for poor scanning quality, with a notable percentage of answer sheets found to be illegible. In response, CBSE has stated that it is addressing identified vulnerabilities and has engaged cybersecurity experts to enhance the system's security. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has confirmed that a team from IITs is working to resolve the ongoing issues with the verification portal.
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The data leak allegations could undermine student trust in the CBSE's evaluation processes and compromise the integrity of the examination system.
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