Kanpur Teen Earns Spot in NASA’s Hall of Fame For Identifying Major Website Bug

Sixteen-year-old Yuvraj Gupta hailing from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh has made headlines for his achievement in the field of cybersecurity. The teen was able to identify a significant bug on NASA’s official website.

This accomplishment earned him a letter of appreciation and a spot in NASA’s Hall of Fame. The self-taught ethical hacker uncovered the flaw while participating in NASA’s bug bounty programme which invites cybersecurity enthusiasts from around the world to identify and report any weaknesses in the system that they might find.

The security flaw could have allowed scammers to send fake emails from NASA’s official domain and would have caused devastating consequences if left undiscovered.

“I was about to give up after two weeks of continuous effort, but one night, I found a flaw in a subdomain of NASA. I immediately documented everything and sent a detailed report with a video to the agency,” said Yuvraj.

His interest in cybersecurity began in grade 6 when he tried to hack a Wi-fi password. Yuvraj’s curiosity developed as he gained more knowledge about ethical hacking through youtube videos, books and online courses, eventually catching the attention of a cybersecurity firm founder and leading to an opportunity to train Indian police officers about cybercrime prevention.

Although his family faces financial difficulties, Yuvraj has received their full support in pursuing his interests, even allowing him to use his father’s savings and sister’s scholarship to help him buy a laptop.

Despite his achievements, Yuvraj is yet to receive support from the government, stating that he had also reported bugs in the Odisha and Maharashtra government websites but hasn’t been given a response.

This article is authored by Rishima Mosali, Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, Pune as part of internship program with Deccan Chronicle.