CBFC in Eye of Storm
500 films’ secret scripts leaked online, board says ‘no breach’
Massive trouble for the Central Board of Film Certification!
Confidential data of over 500 films including unreleased shooting scripts, censor cut orders and private business contracts was allegedly leaked from CBFC’s own e-Cinepramaan portal.
The breach dates from December 2025 to August 2026. While films themselves were not leaked, virtually everything else was exposed.
Russian twist
The files were uploaded to Internet Archive as “dockets” by an anonymous user whose display name was written in Russian using ex-CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi’s name!
The data was open for public download for days before the user deleted everything and vanished on October 12.
CBFC denies, orders probe
CBFC says operations are uninterrupted and no filmmaker reported unauthorised login. It has filed cybercrime complaints and notified CERT-In. Board’s official statement: “Based on information examined so far, no trace has been found of the certification-related documents that were claimed to have been accessed.”
A forensic analysis of servers is on to check if it was external hack or internal vulnerability. A full security audit of e-Cinepramaan will be done.
When contacted by this writer, CBFC member and Annapurna Studios Executive Director Supriya Yarlagadda denied any breach.
“The CBFC has not formally informed us of any breach. We were told there was some news of it. And the matter was being investigated and there was no breach of any content. So these are just rumours, as of now,” she said.