The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is actively addressing vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal used for exam services. Cybersecurity experts from government agencies and IITs are working to strengthen the system following concerns about the newly implemented On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 evaluations. Students have raised issues about unexpected score variations and access to their evaluated answer sheets.
CBSE acknowledged the vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal and deployed a team of cybersecurity professionals to fortify the system. The board expressed gratitude to alert citizens and ethical hackers for identifying weaknesses and encouraged others to provide feedback for further improvements. Despite reports of technical glitches during the Class 12 assessment process, CBSE has denied allegations of a data breach or hacking compromise.
The controversy surrounding the OSM system escalated due to technical issues and concerns about the evaluation process. Internal reviews revealed that the digital evaluation system was implemented without a nationwide pilot project. Subsequent investigations led to rescanning over 68,000 answer sheets and manual verification of around 13,500 answer books due to image-quality concerns. CBSE clarified that a flagged URL was from a test platform and not linked to the live examination evaluation system.
CBSE emphasized that no breach occurred in the live evaluation infrastructure and assured ongoing efforts to enhance security measures. The board is committed to improving the system’s reliability, strengthening cybersecurity, and addressing concerns raised during the evaluation process to ensure the integrity of examination services.
