Allahabad University online final-year exam cancelled, varsity suspects cyber attack

The varsity's administration has said that it is collecting all the data and proofs after which the legal proceeding will be initiated with respect to this cybercrime. It was found that the server had crashed because of unprecedented hits.

Allahabad University Examinations 2022: Allahabad University cancelled the year-ending online semester undergraduate final year exams on two consecutive days after the website crashed. The University has now said that it was deliberately attacked by someone who wanted to sabotage the system through which the online exams were being conducted since June 7.

The varsity's administration has said that it is collecting all the data and proof after which the legal proceeding will be initiated with respect to this cybercrime. It was found that the server had crashed because of unprecedented hits.

It must be noted that this year, the varsity had decided to hold the exams of undergraduate final year students in Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) format in online mode. For conducting the exams, the appointed agency had made provision for around 38,000 hits against around mere 2,000 students. But it was found that during the last two days, there were around 1.8 lakh hits which resulted in website getting crashed, the Allahabad University's officials said, as reported by HT.

“Within minutes of the starting of the exam, there was a sudden spike in number of hits which led to crashing of the server of the website which was equipped to handle 38000 hits against around 2000 students. However, the numbers of hits were around 80,000 in the first few minutes of the commencement of exam and again the second spike was of over 1 lakh hits on the affected days,” said AU public relation officer (PRO), Prof Jaya Kapoor.

"We are quite certain that someone is trying to sabotage the system purposely as even if a student uses multiple options to login for appearing in the exam, the numbers cannot be so huge. This hints to just one option that someone is sabotaging the system," she said.

“We are collecting all the relevant proofs following which legal proceedings would be initiated in respect to the cybercrime,” said the PRO.

She also said that it is quite possible that a similar act would have caused the server crash on earlier occasions too when a section of students were deprived of taking the online examinations. 

“Going by the earlier experience, this time, the agency was well equipped and had in fact increased the capacity by many times and for around 2000 students, the server was equipped to handle 38000 hits. But, we failed to foresee the cyber attack which eventually led to the crash of the server and we had to postpone the exams”, said Prof Kapoor.

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