A 19-year-old, who claimed to have found security flaws in CBSE’s online marking portal for Class 12, responded to the board’s latest clarification with a funny clip – a clip from the song “Dope Shop” by Punjabi rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh – asserting that the board “admitted” to the existence of vulnerabilities in the on-screen marking (OSM) system.
Nisarja Adhikari, an ethical hacker who said he also alerted the government about the technical vulnerabilities, posted the Honey Singh meme on Sunday evening after the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) said the security vulnerabilities had been “contained”.
“How me and the boys are coping after cbs admitted there was indeed a security breach (sic),” he wrote in a 16-second clip.
When HT asked him if he would hack the portal again, he said: “My work is done.” He deleted the mic drop post, then brought it back up again within a couple of hours. The caption read: “20 grace marks for choosing the song!”
“Dope Shope” which was released in 2011 on the album “International Villager” is a song by Honey featuring vocalist Deep Money. It remains the party’s anthem despite controversy over its lyrics referencing drugs and alcohol.
What did the council say?
In its post on
Adhikari, who calls himself an amateur cybersecurity researcher and gave his Class 12 exams this year, said the ‘master password’ in the front-end code of the portal allows him to skip the one-time login (OTP) and open the marks dashboard directly. He claimed that was enough to change the students’ grades. He said he first reported the flaws to CERT-In, the government’s Cyber Emergency Team, in February, but they were not fully fixed.
CBSE’s response changed over the week. On May 26, it rejected the claim, saying that the web address it cited was just a test site containing sample data, and that the operational evaluation portal, located at a different address, had not been hacked.
Three teenagers lead a line
Nisarga Adhikary is one of three teenagers whose posts sparked controversy over OSM.
Vedant Shrivastava, a Class XII student from Delhi, went viral on May 23 after he said that the physics answer sheet sent to him by CBSE during re-evaluation was not his and did not match his handwriting. The council later said it had examined his case and sent him the correct copy.
Sarthak Siddhant, 17, from Jharkhand, posted a blog alleging that CBSE changed the eligibility and technical rules across three tendering rounds in favor of OSM vendor, Hyderabad-based Coempt EduTeck. The board of directors and the company denied any wrongdoing.
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi met Vedant and separately shared Siddhant’s blog, describing India’s Generation Z as “smart and brave”.
OSM, which replaces the posting of physical answer books with scanned copies highlighted on screen, was widely used for Class 12 for the first time this year and has sparked complaints of unclear scans, missing pages and mismatched answer sheets. CBSE denied that it was deployed without proper training and testing.
Where’s Honey Singh, though?
As for Honey Singh, he was in the process of rehabilitating for his admitted addiction to cannabis and alcohol.
He recently posted a video with BJP leader Tarun Chugh, whom he described as a role model that the youth of Punjab should follow on how to come out of addiction.
The 43-year-old music producer spoke candidly about his long battle with addiction that derailed his career, and said drugs were ruining Punjab. Elections are scheduled to be held in the state in about nine months.
