He is 16. He broke into NEET and JEE portals to fix it

At just 16, Dubai-based CBSE student Rylen Anil has exposed vulnerabilities in both the NEET and JEE Advanced systems within days of each other. In an interview with India Today, he spoke about reporting the flaws, receiving a response from top officials, and why he believes young ethical hackers are helping make India's education systems more secure.

In Short

• Rylen Anil, 16, found major flaws in NEET and JEE Advanced portals
• He reported issues to NTA, leading to quick fixes and portal shutdowns
• He sees this as a Gen Z effort to make India’s digital systems safer

At just 16, Rylen Anil is doing the kind of work that forces the government to sit up and take notice. Born and raised in Dubai, the Class 12 CBSE student recently identified and reported serious vulnerabilities in two of India’s most critical examination systems, NEET and JEE Advanced, within a span of just five days.

Rylen is part of a small but growing group of young ethical hackers, including Nisarga and Sarthak, who have quietly exposed flaws in the country's education infrastructure and pushed authorities to confront uncomfortable questions.

In a conversation with India Today, he spoke about how he discovered the vulnerabilities, the fears that came with reporting them, and why he believes labelling students like him as "anti-national" completely misses the point.

Q: In the past five days you have done two ethical hacks, one at the NEET level and one at JEE Advanced. How long did each take you?

A: The JEE one took about three to four hours in total, and the NEET one took me around three hours. But for someone else to do it, they would probably need my level of technical ability.

Q: You have just moved into class twelve. How do you even know how to do this?

A: I have been interested in computer systems since eighth grade. I would play around with them, work on Linux systems, and over time I got into bug bounty hunting and hacking games like CTFs. I learnt a lot from there.

Q: Is this what you see yourself doing later in life?

A: Yes. I want to become a CISO or a cybersecurity engineer.

Q: Take us through the sequence of events. On the thirty-first of May, you put out the first NEET vulnerability. What happened right after?

A: I first sent the vulnerability to CERT In, and about ten minutes later I posted about it on Twitter. Then I went to sleep. Through the night it blew up. In the morning, I got an email from NTA officials thanking me for exposing a huge vulnerability, and they promptly took down the entire portal.

Q: Who at the NTA reached out to you?

A: Abhishek Singh, the director general. He reached out personally and thanked me. I explained the whole process to him, and then they shut the portal down.

Q: And with JEE?

A: That happened faster. I emailed Mr Abhishek about the JEE vulnerability, and he forwarded it to the IIT heads. They responded quickly and fixed the issue within a matter of hours.

Q: Has that portal been shut down too?

A: I am not sure if they shut it down, but I know the vulnerability has been fixed and the issue has been addressed.

Q: I speak to you a day after Sarthak was summoned by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, the youngest person ever to depose before it. My sources tell me it was after his presentation that the shakeup in CBSE happened and the top two bureaucrats were transferred. Are you happy with the action so far, or do you think more needs to be done?

A: I am extremely happy with the action so far. CBSE has addressed all the vulnerabilities Nisarga found, and the NTA officials responded to me very quickly. But I still believe there are many vulnerabilities in our government systems that need to be fixed almost immediately.

Q: You are based in Dubai. Compared to the rest of the world, are Indian systems and portals more vulnerable?

A: I have not really tested portals across the world, so I cannot give you a proper estimate. From what I have seen, the Indian systems were moderately hard to get into.

Q: Moderately hard for someone like you could be very easy for a seasoned professional. Would you agree?

A: Maybe, but I am not at liberty to answer that.

Q: There are proposals that NEET should move online. Do you think the NTA currently has the capacity and a watertight system to make that happen? Should it move online?

A: They definitely have the capacity to move online, but that is their call. From my friends, I have heard they would like NEET to go online. Personally, I think keeping it on paper is still fine, as long as the required precautions are taken.

Q: Sixteen and seventeen-year olds exposing what others could not even imagine, and doing it with real dignity. You did not just dump photos and screenshots online. You removed the details that could cause harm. Do you see this as a Gen Z moment?

A: I see it as a pivotal shift for a lot of young technicians. Many people like me have been inspired by Nisarga and Sarthak to start testing these portals. And because of all these young people testing the government’s systems, I believe we are going to become a much more secure nation.

Q: Some students who spoke up early about the marking discrepancies in CBSE were trolled, called Pakistanis, called anti-national. Were you scared to expose the system?

A: Initially, yes. Right after I posted, it blew up, and I was really scared. I did not know what to do. But once NTA reached out to me, a lot of my worries settled. And I think calling us anti-national is completely wrong. If anything, we are being more nationalist by raising these issues.

Q: You are all still underage. How did your parents react when you said you were going to expose India’s education system?

A: The first thing they asked was whether I was going to jail. I had to quickly explain that I did this ethically. After that, they were on my side. They even contacted a lawyer to make sure I would be safe. In the end, they were proud of me.

Q: Is it a problem that the first thought, when a young person tries to fix the system, is whether they will go to jail?

A: I do not think it is a problem, at least in my case. The first article my parents read said a teenage boy had hacked into NEET. The word hacking carries a lot of stigmas. My father comes from an IT background, so he was very scared I had done something illegal. But once I explained it, they were calm and happy.

Q: Leave me with an anecdote. What is the conversation between you, Sarthak and Nisarga like right now, after being validated by the government, by young people, by the media?

A: Everyone is happy that the system has finally acknowledged us and addressed what we found. And we are glad that our government portals will finally be secure, and will no longer leak the data they were before.

At sixteen, Rylen Anil and his friends have made parliament panels, governments and bureaucrats sit up and take note. They held up a mirror, and the country had no choice but to look.

- Ends