Meet 16-year-old Indian student who identified THIS major flaw on NASA’s website, it honoured him by..., he is from..

A 16-year-old student from Kanpur has earned international fame as he shocked the world by pointing out a big security flaw on NASA's website. NASA acknowledged him and appreciated him by giving him their biggest honour. Kanpur’s Yuvraj Gupta is a class 11 student at Saraswati Vidya Mandir Inter College, Damodar Nagar. NASA honoured him with a letter of appreciation and included his name in its prestigious Hall of Fame. The mistake he pointed out was so devastating that it could have tainted America’s most reputed organisation’s name. 

How did Yuvraj Gupta found big flaw in NASA’s website 

He revealed a flaw that could have easily allowed scammers or hackers to send fake emails from NASA's official domain, but not even the most proficient hackers were able to detect such flaw which spared the organisation from being massively misused. Yuvraj, while participating in NASA's bug bounty programme, happened to notice this mistake on its website. The programme is held and cybersecurity enthusiasts across ages are called to pinpoint and report weaknesses in their systems. 

“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,” Yuvraj said. 

In class 6, Yuvraj tried to hack a Wi-Fi password just because of curiosity. Since then, he has been learning about hacking via YouTube tutorials, online courses, and books. Last year, founder of a cybersecurity firm noticed his skills on social media, which led him to an opportunity to train police officers across India in preventing cybercrime. His achievements are more than impressive. He comes from an economically small background but his family supported him in his big dreams to learn more about computers and hacking.  

However, the Indian government did not take initiative to acknowledge his skills. In India, he has identified bugs in the websites of the Odisha and Maharashtra governments, but even they did not appreciate him. But this did not stop him from pursuing his passion of cybersecurity.