NTA Faces Challenges From 'Dark Web' Threat: Report
The central government has constituted a 7-member high-level committee to look into the exam-related controversies that erupted in the case of the NEET exam, UGC-NET exam, and computer-based ITEP exam. However, according to a report published in the Times of India, the insiders in the National Testing Agency (NTA) seem cynical about the outcomes.
Reportedly, the IT department personnel are uncertain about the rescheduling of the canceled and postponed exams. As per the report in TOI, an NTA source said that the agency’s secrecy department, IT, and administrative staff are unsure about reconducting the examination soon as they fear that the organizations using the ‘dark web’ have hacked into the NTA’s security protocols.
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As per the report, the NTA officials are not even sure about the safety of the black box, where the question papers are stored. The dark web is used by terrorist organizations and the NTA official said that they are not going to stop. Moreover, the official said that the NTA cannot handle these organized cyber attacks due to a lack of capacity to thwart them. Reportedly, a national-level think tank needs to work on threats of such a big level.
Under the report, the insiders insist that there have been no ‘paper leaks in Bihar as so many contradictions were found including the details of six candidates and the timing of seizures.
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As per the NTA’s official, a big overhaul is needed in technology and capacity building in the organization. In the recently scheduled ITEP exam, the exam was canceled despite having a smaller number of candidates. Each file was around 5GB but the distortions appeared in the question papers at the centres upon downloading them.
According to the members, it will be difficult to regain confidence until the agency’s fundamentals are regrouped as one major issue is coming from the rumors that officials on deputation are looking forward to leaving the organization due to concerns about job security.
However, amid this report, the NTA has issued a statement on its social media handle ‘X’, confirming the safety and security of the website and webportals.
NTA website and all its web portals are fully secure. Any information that they have been compromised and hacked is wrong and misleading.
— National Testing Agency (@NTA_Exams) June 23, 2024
