By Admin 
- CBSE’s security effectively countered the attacks.
What is Denial-of-Service Attack: Recently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) informed that its re-evaluation and verification portal faced cyber attacks. At that time thousands of students were using the portal to submit their applications. However, due to the vigilance of the security teams, the services were not affected and the applications of a large number of students were successfully accepted.
What information did CBSE give?
According to CBSE, more than 8,000 students were active on the re-evaluation portal at one time. Till 3 pm yesterday, more than 16,000 students had submitted their applications. Meanwhile, some cyber criminals tried to disrupt the services of the portal.
The board said that the biggest attack was done through Denial-of-Service (DoS) technique. In this attack, about 15 lakh requests were sent to the portal within just two minutes. Apart from this, more than one lakh attempts to gain unauthorized access to the system files were also recorded.
What is Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attack?
Denial-of-Service or DoS Attack is a type of cyber attack that aims to make a website, server or online service unavailable to normal users.
Under normal circumstances, a website processes incoming requests easily. But during a DoS attack, attackers send such a large number of fake or unnecessary requests in a short period of time that the server suddenly gets put under heavy pressure.
When the server begins to handle more traffic than it can handle, the website may slow down, crash frequently, or even shut down completely.
How does this attack cause trouble?
Suppose a portal has been designed to handle a few thousand users at a time. If suddenly millions of requests are sent to it, then its resources start depleting rapidly. In such a situation, genuine users may face difficulty in logging in, the page may take more time to open or the service may stop completely. Especially on portals related to examinations, banking, ticket booking or government services, such attacks can have a serious impact.
Why do cyber security experts consider it dangerous?
Experts believe that DoS attack is not limited to slowing down the website only. This impacts the functioning of institutions, impairs user experience and sometimes disrupts critical services.
In some cases, cyber criminals also use such attacks to divert the attention of security teams. While the team is busy keeping the website up and running, attackers may try to break into another system or steal sensitive information.
How did CBSE handle the situation?
CBSE said that despite cyber attacks, its security system remained effective. The portal handled over 8,000 users and applications from over 16,000 students were successfully processed till 3 pm. This shows that strong cyber security measures can significantly reduce the impact of large-scale attacks.
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