The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) successfully repelled a significant cyberattack targeting its online verification portal during the afternoon, officials confirmed. The digital system faced a 3.8 million-packet denial-of-service (DoS) attack, which was intercepted by the Board’s technical teams. Despite the deliberate attempt to crash the network, web services remained fully operational for students seeking to log issues with their evaluated materials, preventing any major disruption to the high-volume academic workflow.
Portal Processes Over 56,000 Verification Applications
The application portal had been specifically set up for students who had already obtained scanned copies of their evaluated answer books. The system allows users to officially flag critical evaluation errors, including instances of missing pages, omitted supplementary sheets, blurred document scans, completely incorrect answer books, or evaluation executed against an entirely different question paper set. Additionally, students can utilize the platform to seek a formal re-evaluation of specific answers after reviewing their digital copies.
Despite the afternoon network intrusion, CBSE reported that the portal functioned effectively throughout the day, successfully accepting more than 56,000 applications for verification and re-evaluation as of 9:30 PM. The Board noted that its technical departments are proactively monitoring platform performance and introducing ongoing infrastructure refinements. The active portal launch had previously been postponed by the administration to carry out essential technical upgrades, and the Board has since issued consecutive updates tracking user traffic volume, performance metrics, and cybersecurity safeguards.
Public Sector Banking Gateways Manage Heavy Transaction Volumes
To seamlessly manage the massive influx of student applications and related financial submissions, CBSE integrated payment gateway services from four major public sector banks. The participating institutions include the State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, and Indian Bank. To facilitate ease of access, the payment infrastructure was configured to accept remittances via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), debit cards, internet banking, and credit cards issued by any banking institution.
According to institutional data, SBI’s payment gateway processed the largest share of traffic, successfully handling more than 40,000 transactions linked to CBSE services. Bank of Baroda reported that its gateway successfully processed over 7,500 transactions, while Canara Bank stated that more than 4,000 customers from various banking platforms utilized its specific gateway to remit CBSE fees. Indian Bank further confirmed that over 5,000 customers routed their fee payments through its integrated network.
Board Digital Infrastructure Remains Under Severe Public Scrutiny
The disclosure of the afternoon DoS attack comes at a time when CBSE’s broader digital infrastructure is facing heightened public and institutional scrutiny. Over the past several weeks, persistent concerns have been raised by independent security researchers regarding the platform’s core On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, the data networks governing answer-sheet access services, and alleged cybersecurity vulnerabilities deep within the Board’s examination-related systems.
The latest network attack highlights the ongoing technical challenges faced by the educational board as it seeks to maintain smooth, secure, and transparent digital services for millions of students. Technical teams remain on high alert to protect the sensitive student application framework from subsequent network threats while ensuring a seamless user experience.
