CBSE System Glitch: Ethical Hacker Accesses Portal In 30 Mins, Exposes Marks Tampering Vulnerability

In an exclusive interview with India Today’s Sonal Mehrotra Kapoor, ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikari revealed how he breached the CBSE digital marking portal in just thirty minutes. Prompted by curiosity over CBSE's digital transition, Adhikari bypassed the portal’s weak IP-gating by downloading its front-end code and discovering a "disastrous" hard-coded master password. This major security flaw allowed him to impersonate any actual examiner, access teachers' bank details, and dangerously alter student marks. Adhikari documented five to six vulnerabilities and immediately flagged the multi-layered security crisis to the government's premier cyber agency, CERT-In.