Payment failures, login hurdles and an alleged cyber attack disrupted the first day of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) re-launch of the re-evaluation portal on Tuesday, with many Class XII students reporting severe difficulties in accessing vital services, even as thousands successfully submitted their applications.
Earlier today, CBSE took to social media to claim that “malicious actors” attempted to cripple the platform soon after it went live – days after its original launch date. The disruption included a massive denial of service (DoS) attack that flooded the network with 1.5 million visits within two minutes, and more than 100,000 unauthorized attempts to access files, the board said, maintaining that the portal at one point supported nearly 14,000 concurrent users, with more than 28,000 successful submissions as of 10pm on Tuesday.
“The CBSE reassessment portal currently supports over 8,000 concurrent users. As of 3 pm today, over 16,000 students have successfully completed their applications. While thousands of students accessed the CBSE reassessment portal today, malicious actors attempted to disrupt the services through a barrage of cyberattacks. The latest was an attempted denial of service attack causing 1.5 million visits on the portal within 2 minutes and over 1 lakh visits.” CBSE said in a post on X.
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The portal’s launch has been postponed twice
The portal’s launch faced a challenging timeline. The launch was originally scheduled to take place on May 29, but was postponed to June 1, missing that deadline as well, and was finally launched at around 4.30 a.m. on June 2. The platform allows students to request verification and re-evaluation of their answer scripts. While the front-end application process is handled by CBSE, the actual re-assessment is managed via Coempt’s OnMark platform – the same system used for the initial digital assessment.
Throughout the day, students highlighted several critical bottlenecks. “i paid $175 for CBSE revaluation through UPI. “The amount was deducted successfully, the transaction was completed, and even the words ‘Payment received by CBSE’ showed in the receipt, but the portal showed payment failed,” said Shekhar Singh, a student of a private school in Delhi.
Many had difficulties logging in. Ashi Mishra, a student from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, said: “I filled all the details required to log in but the portal repeatedly shows ‘Failed’ and does not continue. I faced this issue at least five times and then I tried in the evening and was able to log in.”
A student from a private school in Delhi, who requested anonymity, said the portal had repeatedly rejected the details entered by the student. The student said: “I entered all the correct details to apply, but the site did not accept them and was telling me that the details were wrong. I tried 10 times but there was no progress. I will try again tomorrow.”
Some students also said that they were unable to apply for verification and re-evaluation because they were yet to receive scanned copies of their answer books. “I applied for the chemistry answer sheet on May 22, but have not received it yet. I have sent a mail to CBSE but have not received any response. It is frustrating,” said Ananya Tripathi, a Class XII student from Delhi.
The portal will remain active until midnight on June 6
The portal will remain open from June 2 to 6 (midnight), and any offline applications or applications submitted after the deadline will not be accepted. After logging in using details such as roll number, date of birth and Aadhaar number, students seeking re-assessment are asked to specify the question number, the page number on which the answer appears, the marks awarded, the marks they believe they deserve and the reasons for seeking re-assessment, including instances where they believe their answer matches the marking scheme but has scored lower marks.
Students, who applied for and received scanned copies of answer sheets between May 19 and 25, can submit objections to the questions until June 6. These objections will then be reviewed by subject matter experts through an on-screen marking (OSM) system.
Based on students’ feedback, CBSE said it has improved the platform, including extending session time limits, to make the process more convenient and seamless. She said: “Our teams remain vigilant and responsive to ensure that things are facilitated for our dear students in every way possible.”
Meanwhile, in a circular issued on Tuesday, CBSE said that Aadhaar verification has been newly integrated into the login workflow as an explicit security measure.
“For children who do not have Aadhaar, the Aadhaar details of parents, relatives or guardian can be used. In this case, it must be the Aadhaar name, date of birth and gender of the person using the Aadhaar number,” it said.
CBSE did not respond to HT’s queries on how Aadhaar improves portal security. The re-evaluation process is under increasing scrutiny in the wake of technical glitches and complaints linked to the post-results services provided by CBSE.
CBSE admitted about 20 cases of mix-ups in the answer sheet after the results were announced.
