Industry Odisha Bureau, Jun 6: The concerted efforts of the cybersecurity expert teams, roped in from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Kanpur, as well as the young brain of 19-year-old ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary eventually bore fruit by plugging the critical gaps in the IT ecosystem of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) that not only hogged the headlines, but also raised the hackles of millions of Indian students and their aggrieved parents soon after the annual results of Class XII and X poured in.
While the cybersecurity expert teams from IIT Madras and Kanpur reportedly put their shoulders to the wheel “for 16-18 hours every day for consecutively two weeks”, the “hesitant CBSE authorities also thought it wise to invite the 19-year-old ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary for interactions with the IIT cybersecurity expert teams to flag the security gaps in CBSE’s IT system.”
Notably, young ethical hacker Nisarga had last month reportedly “pointed out crtical vulnerabilities in the CBSE portal that stores sensitive student data even though the CBSE authorities had earlier denied any such breach in its data security.”
Reportedly, the cybersecurity expert teams had to work hard for two weeks “to patch the vulnerabilities in two CBSE portals – one is that of the On-Screen Marking (OSM) portal OnMark developed by private firm COEMPT Eduteck, and the second one is that of the CBSE portal meant for procuring answer sheets and applying for re-evaluation.”
It has also been reportedly revealed that the cybersecurity expert teams from the IIT Madras and Kanpur “found out a lot of vulnerabilities, including seven to eight critical ones in the OSM portal developed by the by private firm COEMPT Eduteck.”
Finally, the CBSE officials have reportedly confirmed that “the re-evaluation portal was relaunched after the repairs on June 2, while the OSM portal went live yesterday after being set right”.
Also reports added, “The IIT Madras cybersecurity expert team departed to their destination on June 4, while the IIT Kanpur cybersecurity expert team concluded their operations at the CBSE campus yesterday”.
