Delhi Police FIR over 'attacks' on CBSE portal as re-evaluation deadline looms

Delhi Police has registered an FIR and launched an investigation into a series of alleged cyber attacks targeting the Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) post-result services portal, the board said on Friday, 5 June. The case was registered under Sections 66 and 43(f) of the Information Technology Act after the CBSE lodged a formal complaint with the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police.

According to the board, the attacks targeted its post-result services portal, which was launched on 2 June to facilitate services such as verification and re-evaluation of Class 12 answer sheets. In a statement, the CBSE said the portal had come under repeated attacks over the past three days, involving large volumes of malicious traffic originating from multiple IP addresses located both within and outside India.

The board alleged that the objective of the attacks was to destabilise the platform, deny access to legitimate users and attempt unauthorised extraction of information. "As the portal caters to lakhs of students across the country for availing post-result services, any disruption to its functioning has the potential to adversely impact a large number of stakeholders, cause significant public inconvenience, and affect public order and create dissatisfaction amongst students against the board," it said.

The CBSE further claimed that the attacks appeared to have been carried out by elements "inimical to national interest" and sought a detailed investigation and legal action against those responsible.

The board, however, maintained that the attacks had been successfully mitigated and that no breach of its systems had occurred. "It is emphasised that despite these malicious attempts, CBSE's systems and databases remain secure and uncompromised. No data breach or unauthorised access has been detected," it said.

According to the CBSE, the attacks were countered through round-the-clock monitoring and response mechanisms with support from cybersecurity teams from IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras, the Digital India Corporation, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), CERT-In and other Central agencies.

The FIR comes at a time when the board is already facing scrutiny over the functioning of its digital platforms. Even before the alleged attacks were reported, students had been complaining about persistent glitches on the re-evaluation portal, including verification failures, login timeouts, payment mismatches and session expiries that prevented successful submission of applications.

The problems have caused particular anxiety among students seeking admission to IITs, NITs and other engineering institutes through the ongoing JoSAA counselling process. Many candidates who narrowly missed the 75 per cent eligibility threshold are awaiting re-evaluation results in the hope of becoming eligible for admission.

The cyber attack complaint also comes against the backdrop of the controversy surrounding the CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. The board has faced questions after several Class 12 students alleged that scanned copies of answer sheets made available online did not match their handwriting, triggering concerns about possible discrepancies in the digital evaluation process.

Following the complaints, the cabinet secretariat earlier this week announced the formation of a one-member committee to examine the procurement of services for the OSM system by the CBSE.

Separately, cybersecurity concerns around examination infrastructure have intensified in recent weeks after independent researchers highlighted vulnerabilities in educational platforms.

Among them was 16-year-old cybersecurity researcher Rylen Anil, who disclosed what he described as a cloud storage configuration flaw affecting the JEE Advanced 2026 results infrastructure. IIT Roorkee subsequently acknowledged the issue and said corrective measures were being taken, while maintaining that the affected data could not be modified.

Police said the investigation into the alleged attacks on the CBSE portal is underway.