India
-Gaurav Sharma
The Central Board of Secondary Education said it has fixed the vulnerabilities recently found in the OnMark portal used by its service provider and is now working with cybersecurity specialists to make the evaluation system stronger and safer for ongoing and future use.
The board added that “We have been closely monitoring the vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal of our service provider that are being flagged in the public domain,” and confirmed that the issues highlighted online have been addressed while longer-term security upgrades are being rolled out.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) addressed vulnerabilities found in its OnMark evaluation portal, reported by ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary, and is collaborating with cybersecurity experts to enhance the system’s security.
CBSE OnMark portal cybersecurity vulnerabilities and expert response
According to CBSE, “An expert team of cybersecurity professionals has been deployed over the last few days from across various arms of the government as well as the IITs to fortify these systems, including taking them over to a more secure set up,” indicating a coordinated official effort.
The latest response followed a detailed blog by 19-year-old ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary, who reported security gaps in CBSE’s digital evaluation framework and claimed to have found several weaknesses in the On-Screen Marking portal that might have enabled access to examiner accounts and core evaluation features.
CBSE OnMark portal cybersecurity vulnerabilities and digital evaluation claims
Earlier, CBSE had dismissed suggestions that its main digital evaluation platform was breached, stating that the web address circulated on social media referred only to a testing environment with dummy records, not to the live system where actual answer sheets are assessed.
The board also expressed appreciation for public vigilance, saying “We are grateful to all alert citizens and ethical hackers pointing out such weaknesses, and have gotten in touch with some of them directly,” while emphasising that work with experts continues to strengthen the OnMark portal infrastructure.
