Authorities overseeing JEE (Advanced) on Friday clarified that a cloud storage misconfiguration flagged by an ethical hacker earlier this week did not lead to any large-scale exposure of candidate data and had no impact on examination records, results, or rankings.
The clarification follows social media claims alleging that candidate records and admit card documents related to JEE (Advanced) 2026 had been exposed through a cloud storage vulnerability.
In an official statement, IIT Roorkee, the conducting institute for JEE (Advanced) 2026, said the issue emerged during technical modifications carried out on June 2 to help candidates facing difficulties in accessing admit cards and to ensure the smooth functioning of the registration process.
“An ethical hacker, Rylen Anil, identified the misconfiguration and reported that database access was possible. The issue was promptly addressed, and access to the data was immediately restricted,” the institute said.
IIT Roorkee emphasized that the affected cloud storage was configured as read-only, meaning the data could neither be modified nor deleted. It added that cloud access logs showed no evidence of mass data downloads, with access limited to less than 0.05% of the stored information.
The Education Ministry also dismissed reports of a major data breach. “As clarified by IIT Roorkee, no sensitive information was compromised. Examination outcomes, marks, and candidate records remain fully secure, intact, and protected,” the ministry said.
The issue came to light after Dubai-based cybersecurity researcher Rylen Anil, 16, posted on X about a cloud storage misconfiguration that he said could have exposed candidate records and admit card PDFs. IIT Roorkee acknowledged the report publicly and thanked him for responsibly disclosing the vulnerability.
Anil also urged caution against overstating the incident. “While there was a vulnerability, I have not seen evidence supporting claims of a large-scale leak. The issue was promptly reported and quickly resolved by IIT officials,” he said.
