The National Testing Agency (NTA) has arrested a 19-year-old man from Bihar for gaining unauthorized access to NEET-UG 2026 candidate accounts and attempting to divert refund payments to his own bank account.
The breach was uncovered during an Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch investigation, which prompted the agency to strengthen security measures ahead of the June 21 re-examination.
The vulnerabilities surfaced in the course of Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch’s investigation into a complaint by a parent that her daughter’s NEET application number and password had been stolen and misused.
The accused, Navinkumar Yadav, targeted the NEET portal accounts of about 350 students across various states and managed to gain access to about 150 accounts, police said.
He exploited weak and simple passwords used by around 150 of them to gain unauthorized access.
Once inside the accounts, he changed the registered bank account details and replaced them with his own, aiming to divert the eligible refund amounts directly to himself.
The refunds were a consequence of the cancellation on May 12 of the NEET-UG 2026 examination held on May 3 after overlaps between a pre-circulated guess paper and the actual question paper were discovered.
The NTA has strengthened security measures ahead of the re-examination, incorporating high security features using government protocols for question paper preparation, transportation, and overall conduct.
