CBSE re-evaluation portal faced ‘coordinated’ cyberattack: ‘3.8 million malicious packets’

THe exchange room of Secondary Education's (CBSE) re-evaluation portal was targeted by a large-scale cyberattack involving nearly 3.8 trillion malicious packets on June 3 in an try to disrupt the on-going verification and re-evaluation process, a board official has said.Within minutes of becoming operational on June 2, the portal blocked over 100,000 unauthorised access attempts, an official said. Several coordinated high-volume traffic bursts resembling Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks were mitigated by the security systems."The traffic profile showed coordinated request surges consistent with DDoS-type attack patterns. However, the security architecture deployed on the platform successfully mitigated the threat and ensured continuity of services," a CBSE official told ANI.Re-evaluation portal goes liveThe board has received 70,443 applications as of June 4 through the post-result grievance redressal mechanism. These included 7,314 applications for verification of marks and 63,119 applications for re-evaluation, officials said.The re-evaluation portal, originally scheduled to go live on June 1, was launched a day later after an emergency security hardening exercise was undertaken regarding concerns with the successful implementation of the OSM system."Prior to activation, the system underwent penetration testing, vulnerability assessments and load testing with specialised cybersecurity support. The launch was deferred to ensure that all identified vulnerabilities were addressed and the platform could withstand high traffic volumes," an official revealed.Once security validations were completed, the portal was activated around 4:30 AM on June 2 and recorded nearly 1.5 million access requests within the first two minutes of its launch despite unauthorised attempts being blocked and denied in real time. The platform remained stable with more than 8,000 concurrent users despite facing the threat of cyberattacks and large volumes of traffic.No confirmed case of comprise on student data has been recorded so far. Post-event security reviews are currently underway.The OSM controversyControversies surrounding the OSM system were brought to light after several complaints of missing pages, unchecked answers, and discrepancies in scanned copies of answer books by students. A review of the implementation and procurement aspects of the project were initiated by the Ministry of Education which looked into vendor performance, contractual obligations, and quality-control mechanisms.Subsequently, a parallel investigation was launched under S. Radha Chauhan, Chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission, to examine procurement and implementation-related aspects of the project.Rahul Singh and Himanshu Gupta were transferred as part of the administrative response as Prashant Lokhande was appointed as the new CBSE chairman and Varun Bhardwaj became the Board's new secretary.Technical audits have been initiated into the matter with the support of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Scanning and platform-related deficiences identified during the review process are being addressed via corrective measures.