'15 lakh hits within 2 minutes': CBSE re-evaluation portal faces cyberattacks; over 1 lakh attempts for unauthorised access

NEW DELHI: Hours after the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) launched its much-anticipated verification and re-evaluation portal for Class 12 students on Tuesday, the board reported a series of "cyber threats" targeting the platform.

According to CBSE, at one point, the portal received nearly 15 lakh hits within just two minutes as an attempt to deny students access to the platform. The board also detected more than one lakh attempts to gain unauthorised access to files, which it attributed to the activities of “malicious actors” seeking to disrupt services.





"The CBSE re-evaluation portal is currently supporting more than 8,000 concurrent users. As of 3 pm today, over 16,000 students have successfully submitted their applications," the board said in a post on X.


"While thousands of students accessed the CBSE re-evaluation portal today, malicious actors attempted to disrupt services through a barrage of cyberattacks. Most recent being a denial of service attack attempt causing 1.5 million hits on the portal within a matter of 2 minutes and more than 1 lakh attempts of unauthorised file access," it added.

CBSE further stated that despite the challenges, the platform remains operational and has been further refined based on feedback from students. Among the improvements introduced are extended session time limits to make the submission process more convenient and seamless.

The portal went live a day it was scheduled to be launched. According to a board official, the launch had been delayed due to technical issues. The postponement had raised concerns among students and parents, especially in light of reports of glitches during the answer-sheet access process earlier this month.

CBSE had previously maintained that the portal would be launched to ensure a transparent and seamless mechanism for students seeking verification of marks and re-evaluation of answer books.

The rollout also comes amid the board's efforts to bolster cybersecurity safeguards around the OnMark portal, operated by its service provider. On Sunday, CBSE announced that a team of cybersecurity experts drawn from various government agencies and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) had been deployed to strengthen the platform's security infrastructure.

(With ANI inputs)