The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced that its official student revaluation portal was targeted by a massive cyberattack on Tuesday afternoon. Around 3:00 PM, while approximately 16,000 legitimate students were applying for revaluation, malicious actors launched a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. This caused a massive traffic spike, generating nearly 1.5 million log-in attempts within just two minutes, alongside over 100,000 unauthorized attempts to breach the platform.
A DDoS attack works by using multiple compromised systems to flood a targeted website with artificial traffic, attempting to overwhelm the server and force it offline. However, CBSE’s integrated cybersecurity defense systems successfully detected and thwarted the malicious traffic. The board confirmed that the portal remained fully operational throughout the incident, allowing the active processing of genuine student revaluation requests without any major disruptions.
The revaluation window was opened following widespread public criticism over CBSE’s newly introduced “on-screen marking system” for Class 12 (Plus Two) exams, which students alleged led to mixed-up answer sheets and missing answer scripts. To address the severe backlash, CBSE agreed to provide scanned copies of answer scripts to students, allowing them to verify their marks before applying for a formal review. CBSE reassured the public that its technical teams are continuously monitoring the network infrastructure to handle heavy traffic loads and maintain a seamless application process.
