The offer has drawn good response from students, with hundreds of them posting their register number and date of birth in the comment section of the Facebook page “CyberSword'.Thiruvananthapuram: As a mark of protest against the lackadaisical attitude of the authorities concerned in fixing security flaws in the website of the Controller of Examination under the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), an ethical hacker has broken into the site and posted a message offering to help candidates awaiting results pass exams.
The offer has drawn good response from students, with hundreds of them posting their register number and date of birth in the comment section of the Facebook page “CyberSword’, seeking the hacker’s assistance to clear their respective exams.
Some of them even pleaded with the hacker that since they had failed in their previous attempts, they desperately wanted his help. The hacker later claimed that the marks of the student who posted the first comment were manipulated to help him pass the exam.
On the Facebook page, the well-intentioned hacker claimed that the decision to hack the website was taken after the government and the Cyber Cell authorities failed to respond to the repeated alerts regarding the security vulnerability in the database of layer of the website.
“I had sent several mails to the authorities concerned, including the Chief Minister’s Office, seeking immediate actions to plug the security loopholes. There were attempts by black hats (illegal hacking groups) to breach the website and compromise the data a few days ago,” the hacker stated in a press note.
Apart from examination results, the DTE database also contains sensitive personal information of the students including details of Aadhaar and other identity documents.
In January, the IT Department had alerted the Directorate of Technical Education about possible cyber-attacks. Following this, the database was modified to enhance security as per the directions of the IT secretary, it was learnt.
The warning message was also sent to the Chief Minister, chief secretary, and the Cyber Police by the hacker.
Meanwhile, the authorities said that efforts have been taken to enhance security and protect the site from hacking.
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