<p>The Central Board of Secondary Education (<a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/cbse">CBSE</a>) has finally admitted to vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal used by its service provider as the row over alleged technical and operation issues in the education body's on-screen marking (OSM) system refuses to die. </p><p>The controversy involving mix-up of students' answer sheets began in mid-May soon after the release of the CBSE Class 12 results. </p><p>Several students flagged mix-up cases after accessing scanned copies uploaded on the portal and finding that the answer sheets did not belong to them.</p><p>The CBSE later reached out to them and shared their correct answer sheets. The Board said that it had taken up on "top priority" the cases related to alleged mismatched answer sheets and other concerns faced by students in the revaluation process.</p>.Following technical glitch, CBSE says Class 12 verification and re-evaluation portal to go live soon.<p>Throughout the whole episode, three students have become the face of Gen Z for exposing the systemic failures of the marking process. </p><p><strong>Vedant Srivastava</strong></p><p>The controversy started with a post that went viral on social media by Delhi-based Class 12 student, Vedant. He alleged that the Physics answer sheet uploaded by the CBSE under the re-evaluation process was not his.</p><p>Vedant's post, which garnered millions of views on X, said he and his family discovered that the handwriting in the Physics answer sheet provided by CBSE did not match his own.</p><p>Later, several other students also took to social media with similar claims. </p><p><strong>Nisarga Adhikary</strong></p><p>On May 22, a user on social media claimed he had hacked into the CBSE's "OSM" portal used for class 12 board exam evaluation and found critical vulnerabilities.</p><p>The user, Nisarga Adhikary described himself as a cybersecurity researcher by hobby in a blog on X and claimed that he gave his class 12 exams this year.</p><p>He claimed that he could change the teacher's name, roll number, and bank details on the CBSE site, adding that he had reported the vulnerabilities to CERT-In, but they were unable to patch most of them,</p><p>Adhikary also hinted at a serious security flaw in the portal and showed how he could “paginate and enumerate” answer sheets and question papers. "... anyone on the Internet can download any scanned booklet — across institutions. Multiple institutions are using the same bucket, insanely insecure,” he posted on X with photos showing how the papers were possibly photographed by a mobile phone, but not scanned.</p><p>CBSE initially denied these claims only to later acknowledge the vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal used by its service provider. </p><p><strong>Sarthak Sidhant</strong></p><p>The latest addition to the students who publicly flagged the issues in CBSE's evaluation system is Sarthak Sidhant. </p><p>Sarthak, a class 12 student from Jharkhand, raised serious concerns over CBSE's tendering process, highlighting discrepancies that point towards preferential treatment for Coempt, the company that did the OSM for the exam. </p><p>Sidhant shared his findings in a detailed blog comparing multiple CBSE tender documents.</p><p>Sidhant's investigation shows that CBSE had issued three separate tenders, with the first removed from the Gem portal, the second failing all bidders in technical evaluation, and the third eventually awarded to an EduTech firm. He has alleged that CBSE changed the Request for Proposal (RFP) to unduly benefit Coempt. </p><p>According to government sources, experts from IIT-Madras and IIT-Kanpur, along with Digital Infrastructure Corporation of India (DICI), are examining the system and strengthening the portal and payment gateway integration. </p>
<p>The Central Board of Secondary Education (<a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/cbse">CBSE</a>) has finally admitted to vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal used by its service provider as the row over alleged technical and operation issues in the education body's on-screen marking (OSM) system refuses to die. </p><p>The controversy involving mix-up of students' answer sheets began in mid-May soon after the release of the CBSE Class 12 results. </p><p>Several students flagged mix-up cases after accessing scanned copies uploaded on the portal and finding that the answer sheets did not belong to them.</p><p>The CBSE later reached out to them and shared their correct answer sheets. The Board said that it had taken up on "top priority" the cases related to alleged mismatched answer sheets and other concerns faced by students in the revaluation process.</p>.Following technical glitch, CBSE says Class 12 verification and re-evaluation portal to go live soon.<p>Throughout the whole episode, three students have become the face of Gen Z for exposing the systemic failures of the marking process. </p><p><strong>Vedant Srivastava</strong></p><p>The controversy started with a post that went viral on social media by Delhi-based Class 12 student, Vedant. He alleged that the Physics answer sheet uploaded by the CBSE under the re-evaluation process was not his.</p><p>Vedant's post, which garnered millions of views on X, said he and his family discovered that the handwriting in the Physics answer sheet provided by CBSE did not match his own.</p><p>Later, several other students also took to social media with similar claims. </p><p><strong>Nisarga Adhikary</strong></p><p>On May 22, a user on social media claimed he had hacked into the CBSE's "OSM" portal used for class 12 board exam evaluation and found critical vulnerabilities.</p><p>The user, Nisarga Adhikary described himself as a cybersecurity researcher by hobby in a blog on X and claimed that he gave his class 12 exams this year.</p><p>He claimed that he could change the teacher's name, roll number, and bank details on the CBSE site, adding that he had reported the vulnerabilities to CERT-In, but they were unable to patch most of them,</p><p>Adhikary also hinted at a serious security flaw in the portal and showed how he could “paginate and enumerate” answer sheets and question papers. "... anyone on the Internet can download any scanned booklet — across institutions. Multiple institutions are using the same bucket, insanely insecure,” he posted on X with photos showing how the papers were possibly photographed by a mobile phone, but not scanned.</p><p>CBSE initially denied these claims only to later acknowledge the vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal used by its service provider. </p><p><strong>Sarthak Sidhant</strong></p><p>The latest addition to the students who publicly flagged the issues in CBSE's evaluation system is Sarthak Sidhant. </p><p>Sarthak, a class 12 student from Jharkhand, raised serious concerns over CBSE's tendering process, highlighting discrepancies that point towards preferential treatment for Coempt, the company that did the OSM for the exam. </p><p>Sidhant shared his findings in a detailed blog comparing multiple CBSE tender documents.</p><p>Sidhant's investigation shows that CBSE had issued three separate tenders, with the first removed from the Gem portal, the second failing all bidders in technical evaluation, and the third eventually awarded to an EduTech firm. He has alleged that CBSE changed the Request for Proposal (RFP) to unduly benefit Coempt. </p><p>According to government sources, experts from IIT-Madras and IIT-Kanpur, along with Digital Infrastructure Corporation of India (DICI), are examining the system and strengthening the portal and payment gateway integration. </p>
