4 min readNew DelhiMay 27, 2026 04:11 AM IST
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has clarified that its on-screen marking (OSM) portal was not compromised, and no security breaches have come to light on the portal that was used for evaluation.
Claims surfaced on social media recently that the Board’s OSM portal was compromised. A user on X had said that they were able to hack the OSM portal in February, and had reported the vulnerabilities to CERT-In, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team.
Sources in the Board said on Tuesday that the portal the user was referring to was a dummy one. In a statement, the Board said that the portal used for evaluation of answer books was different from the one that was flagged by the user, and it “has neither been compromised nor does it have the vulnerabilities indicated in the said social media post”.
The Board said the URL that was flagged in the post was a testing site with sample data for internal testing and review, and that it did not contain any actual evaluation data, or marks.
“The Board emphasises that no security breaches have come to light on the portal deployed for the actual evaluation work,” the statement said.
Reiterating what the Board and the Education Ministry has maintained about the on-screen marking system, the statement issued on Tuesday stated that the OSM system “has been implemented for enhanced transparency in assessments”, and that it has “strong grievance redressal mechanisms built into it”.
Sources said that while the OSM portal was not found to be compromised, the Board’s post-result services portal had vulnerabilities, which are being fixed before the portal is made available for verification and re-evaluation applications. In its earlier statements as well, the Board has said that this post-result services portal saw “several attempts of authorised interference” after it was thrown open for applications to obtain answer book copies. Students had flagged issues with the portal including those of being charged excess or smaller amounts.
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The Board also said on Tuesday that it has received 4.04 lakh applications for scanned answer book copies. This is over three times the figure of 1.31 lakh applications received last year.
Around 11.32 lakh answer books have been requested by students, and 8.98 lakh copies have been provided so far, with the rest expected to be sent by Wednesday. Sources in the Board said the nature of issues raised about the answer books, and their numbers will be clear only after the portal for verification and re-evaluation is made available.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan held discussions on Tuesday with the four public sector banks that are overhauling the CBSE’s payment gateway for post-result services –State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, and Indian Bank.
The banks have been asked to work with the CBSE in ensuring technical safeguards, real-time monitoring, and faster grievance redressal mechanisms in the payment system. The banks will also help CBSE ensure automatic refunds for excess or incorrect payments.
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Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education headed by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh will discuss the matter of on-screen marking, “exams and issues faced by students consequently”, and the CBSE’s directive earlier this month that a third language will be mandatory for class 9 students this academic year onwards, at a meeting on June 2. For this, it has summoned the CBSE Chairman and the School Education Secretary in the Education Ministry.
