New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, on Friday, fact checked allegations of a data breach and privacy lapse affecting lakhs of JEE (Advanced) aspirants, and declared it as misleading and factually inaccurate.
A temporary cloud storage misconfiguration did not result in the compromise or large-scale extraction of any sensitive data, the institute clarified.
The information being circulated on social media does not accurately portray the incident, IIT Roorkee, which organised JEE (Advanced) 2026, said, alleging that efforts were being made to spread misinformation.
“The affected storage was read only, meaning no data could be edited or deleted. An analysis of cloud access logs confirmed that no bulk download occurred (the read-only access was limited to less than 0.05% of the data). No sensitive information was compromised or mass-extracted. This incident had zero impact on examination outcomes, including marks, ranks, and categories of the candidates,” it clarified, as reported by Mint.
The information being circulated on social media is misleading and does not accurately represent the situation, IIT Roorkee.
On June 2, 2026, certain technical measures were implemented on an expedited basis to help candidates who were facing difficulties accessing their admit card details and to ensure the smooth functioning of the registration process, the institute said.
“These interventions resulted in a minimal, temporary misconfiguration in a cloud storage component. An ethical hacker, Mr Rylen Anil, identified this misconfiguration and reported that he could access the concerned database. The issue was immediately rectified and access to the data was restricted,” it further added.
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee is the organising institute for JEE Advanced 2026, the entrance test for admission to the IITs and other premier institutes. As the organising institute, IIT Roorkee oversees the examination process, announces the results, and works with the Joint Admission Board to manage admissions.
Candidates aspiring to secure admission to the IITs through JEE Advanced must either obtain a minimum of 75 per cent marks in their Class 12 examinations or rank within the top 20 percentile of successful candidates in their respective education boards, under the existing eligibility criteria.
A total of 1,79,694 candidates appeared for both papers of JEE (Advanced) 2026, held on May 17, out of 1,87,389 registered candidates. Among 3,052 registered Persons with Disabilities (PwD) candidates, 2,864 appeared in both papers and 887 qualified.
JEE (Advanced) saw 56,880 candidates qualify in 2026. The results, announced on June 1, included 46,773 male candidates and 10,107 female candidates.
Shubham Kumar from the IIT Delhi zone secured the top rank with 330 out of 360 marks. Among female candidates, Arohi Deshpande emerged as the highest-ranked, securing an All India Rank of 77 with a score of 280 marks.
