This comes amid major controversy that has raised questions over student evaluation, putting into spotlight the company behind the platform.
Image: IANS
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Sunday, May 31, acknowledged cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal had been flagged in the public domain. The Board noted that an expert team has been deployed to secure the platform, which is its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system utilised for evaluation of Class 12 answer sheets.
“We have been closely monitoring the vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal of our service provider that are being flagged in the public domain. 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,” the CBSE said on its official X handle.
Advertisement
This came amid major controversy that has raised questions over student evaluation, putting into spotlight the company behind the platform.
Advertisement
In its X post, CBSE stated that the “identified vulnerabilities have been contained, and other exploitable weaknesses are being ruled out.”
“We are grateful to all alert citizens and ethical hackers pointing out such weaknesses, and have gotten in touch with some of them directly. We request any others to reach out to our security teams at secy-cbse@nic.in for any further inputs,” it added.
We have been closely monitoring the vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal of our service provider that are being flagged in the public domain. An expert team of cybersecurity professionals has been deployed over the last few days from across various arms of the government as well…
— CBSE HQ (@cbseindia29) May 31, 2026
This comes after 19-year-old Nisarga Adhikary earlier noticed that the OnMark portal link was completely public and alleged security flaws in CBSE’s digital evaluation ecosystem.
He claimed to have found several major vulnerabilities in the OSM portal, which led to full account takeover of examiner accounts. He later came out with a detailed blog post to mention his findings after weeks of what he described as inadequate official response.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, targeted the Centre over the CBSE OSM row and shared a video on social media, featuring his interaction with a group of students.
A revealing chat with my fellow “anti-national Soros agents.”
Vedant and his friends are brilliant, brave young Indians who asked CBSE and the Modi government simple questions – but got insults instead of answers.
They deserve a bright and secure future. We will make sure they… pic.twitter.com/5InBxgJv1B
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 31, 2026
He described them as brave young Indians who asked the government simple questions but received “insults instead of answers”.
“A revealing chat with my fellow ‘anti-national Soros agents.’ Vedant and his friends are brilliant, brave young Indians who asked CBSE and the Modi government simple questions – but got insults instead of answers. They deserve a bright and secure future. We will make sure they get it,” he wrote.
Advertisement
