India's Censor Board Suffers Data Breach Exposing Over 500 Film Applications, The Hindu Reports

A data breach at India's Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) exposed application records for more than 500 titles, including dozens of feature films, according to an investigation by The Hindu. The leaked material appears to have originated from the e-Cinepramaan digital portal and included detailed shooting scripts, cut orders, and local distribution agreements dating from December 2025 to August 2026, though no feature film files were exposed.

The documents were uploaded to the Internet Archive earlier in October by a now-deleted account using a Russian display name corresponding to former CBFC chairman Prasoon Joshi, before being removed by October 12. At least three exposed distribution agreements—covering titles such as "The Secret Agent" and "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die"—revealed confidential licensing fees paid for the films. Following a multi-hour outage of the e-Cinepramaan portal on October 4, the CBFC notified the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), filed a cybercrime complaint, and committed to a security audit while stating that no individual filmmaker's account appeared compromised. "However, based on the information examined so far, no trace has been found of the certification-related documents that were claimed to have been accessed." — Office of CBFC Chairperson Shashi Shekhar Vempati