27-05-2025
Class 11 Student From Kanpur On NASA's Hall Of Fame After Finding Major Flaw In The Website
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A student of Saraswati Vidya Mandir Inter College, Damodar Nagar, NASA has honored 16-year-old Yuvraj Gupta with a letter of appreciation.
A class 11 student from Kanpur, Yuvraj Gupta has been honored by NASA's Hall of Fame after identifying a major security flaw on its website. The flaw he discovered could have allowed anyone to send fake emails from NASA's official domain, something even seasoned cybersecurity professionals had overlooked.
The 16-year-old found the vulnerability while participating in NASA's bug bounty programme, which invites cybersecurity enthusiasts to identify and report weaknesses in their systems. A student of Saraswati Vidya Mandir Inter College, Damodar Nagar, NASA has honored him with a letter of appreciation.
Yuvraj's journey in cybersecurity began in Class 6, driven by his curiosity to hack a Wi-Fi password. Using YouTube tutorials, online courses, and books, he taught himself ethical hacking. In 2024, his skills caught the eye of a cybersecurity firm founder on social media, which led to an opportunity to train police officers across India in preventing cybercrime.
Despite facing financial hardships, Yuvraj's family supported him as best as they could. With the help of his father's savings and his sister's scholarship, he finally managed to buy a laptop to enhance his skills.
Even though Yuvraj has achieved global recognition, he has yet to receive any support from the government. He hopes that authorities will acknowledge and encourage young talent like him. He has identified bugs on the websites of the Odisha and Maharashtra governments but is still awaiting a response.
A native of Naubasta, Kanpur, he lives with his parents and two sisters.
Earlier in Februrary, NASA had honored Daksh Malik, a class 9 student, for his extraordinary achievement in the field of astronomy. He detected a Main Belt Asteroid, designated '2023 OG40.' As part of the International Asteroid Discovery Project (IADP), Daksh was one of the few young citizen scientists to detect asteroids using real astronomical data.
First Published:
May 27, 2025, 15:36 IST
