Puzzlingly, the parameters in these files, such as “isTimed” and “allowSpellChecking,” seem to have little effect in the software. 12345? Amazing, I have the same combination on my luggage! Courtesy of is a set of config files that comes bundled with each downloaded exam, and those files are, well, just plaintext. The DC Bar published users’ background check documents, containing SSNs and employment histories, in addition to their IDs.

More astonishingly, the NY BOLE isn’t the only exam board that had this sort of problem. Thankfully, once users reported the problem, the BOLE fixed it - though the fact that it was a issue in the first place is ridiculous. It’s worth noting that it seems like more of a shortcoming on the part of the NY BOLE and not ExamSoft. Users uploaded government IDs to their accounts, which were promptly sent to a server and stored accessible publicly via a random URL. It turns out that you don’t even need to log into somebody’s account to scope out their personal info. It would only take a bit of social engineering for somebody to get into your account, and if you reuse passwords, then your unrelated accounts can be easily compromised. If a customer support rep can read your password to you over the phone, you’ve got a real problem.

Others had their passwords emailed to them. Seriously- how is this still a thing? Users report being able to call customer support and retrieve not only their usernames but their passwords as well. Let’s start with something that should have been settled twenty years ago. Essentially, according to its users, Examplify is an unmitigated disaster. If you’ve missed out on the Examplify Saga, following the Diploma Privilege for New York account on Twitter will get you caught up pretty quickly. The NY State Board of Law Examiners (NY BOLE), along with several other state exam boards, chose to administer this year’s bar exam via ExamSoft’s Examplify. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but for one software firm, it really is. We have a pretty good grasp on how security and privacy should work, and it shouldn’t be too hard to implement sensible anti-cheating features.

We’d like to think that online exams shouldn’t be a big deal. Many in-person events have had to find ways to move to the internet this year, and exams are no exception. This year, the bar exam came at a much larger cost for recent law school graduates - their privacy. Most standardized tests have a fee: the SAT costs $50, the GRE costs $200, and the NY Bar Exam costs $250.

Examsoft file decryptor