India censor board breach exposed applications for more than 500 films, The Hindu finds

A data breach at India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) exposed information from applications for more than 500 titles, dozens of which were feature films, The Hindu has found.

The leak appears to have originated from the board’s e-Cinepramaan portal, the system launched nearly a decade ago to digitise its certification work. The exposed material included detailed shooting scripts, cut orders and other documents submitted by filmmakers seeking certification for their films to be screened in Indian cinemas.

The documents did not include any feature films themselves, which are usually handled separately, The Hindu reports. Packaged as datasets, they were freely downloadable from the non-profit Internet Archive website and remained accessible for days. Most were posted earlier this month, but all had been taken down by 12 October.

The user who uploaded the documents used a display name in Russian corresponding to that of former CBFC chairman Prasoon Joshi. The account has since been deleted, and The Hindu said it was unable to contact the user. The records date from December 2025 to August 2026.

The CBFC told The Hindu it was looking into the breach. In a statement from chairperson Shashi Shekhar Vempati’s office, the board said it had reviewed the information shared about alleged unauthorised access to the e-Cinepramaan portal, but that “based on the information examined so far, no trace has been found of the certification-related documents that were claimed to have been accessed.”

Sources: The Hindu (breach findings, portal, material exposed, Internet Archive availability, takedown date, uploader detail, record dates, CBFC response).