IIT Roorkee Breaks Silence on JEE Advanced Data Leak
New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee has dismissed allegations of a large-scale data breach involving JEE Advanced aspirants, stating that reports circulating on social media are inaccurate and misrepresent the actual incident.
In a statement shared on social media, the institute clarified that claims suggesting lakhs of candidates were affected by a data breach are “misleading and factually incorrect.” According to IIT Roorkee, the issue arose during technical interventions carried out on June 2 to help candidates facing difficulties in accessing admit card information and to ensure the smooth functioning of registration-related services.
The institute explained that the process led to a brief misconfiguration in a cloud storage component. IIT Roorkee said the issue was identified by ethical hacker Rylen Anil, who reported being able to access certain stored data. Following the disclosure, the institute said the configuration was corrected immediately and access restrictions were reinstated.
According to IIT Roorkee, the affected storage system was configured in read-only mode, meaning no files could be altered or deleted. A review of cloud access logs reportedly showed that access was limited to less than 0.05 per cent of the available data and that no bulk downloading activity took place.
The institute further stated that there was no compromise of examination-related information, including candidates’ marks, ranks or category details. It emphasised that the incident had no impact on the outcome of JEE Advanced 2026 or the ongoing JoSAA counselling process.
Rylen Anil, who first highlighted the issue, claimed that the exposed storage contained nearly 179,600 result records and around 187,300 admit card PDFs, including candidate names, dates of birth and mobile numbers.
However, IIT Roorkee maintained that the situation did not amount to a large-scale breach and criticised attempts to portray the technical incident as a threat to the integrity of the examination system. The institute reiterated its commitment to maintaining transparency, security and trust in the JEE Advanced process.
