Three years ago, the College Board introduced a digital version of the SAT, marking a major shift from nearly a century of paper-based exams. Students, who had traditionally relied on No. 2 pencils, now take the test on laptops. One of the College Board’s intended benefits of going digital was to curb cheating, partly by delivering unique sets of questions to each student.

However, concerns about the security of the digital SAT are mounting. Recently, copies of exam questions from actual digital SATs have appeared online, circulating on social media and websites, some of which appear to be based in China.

These leaks became a major topic of discussion at an international education conference held in November in Seville, Spain, according to Angel B. Peréz, president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

“It was the hot topic at the conference,” Dr. Peréz said. “Several counselors approached me, expressing serious concern about these leaks.”

The College Board was reportedly informed of the cheating by an SAT tutor, according to emails obtained by The New York Times. The tutor warned that the problem was not limited to a single compromised test but represented a multiyear breach of active exam content, accessible worldwide.

The tutor, who works with students at a top European boarding school and requested anonymity to protect his students and institution, confirmed after reviewing the leaked questions that some appeared authentic.

The SAT is administered seven to eight times annually across roughly 1,700 locations in 187 countries. Students are allowed to bring their own laptops to SAT-approved testing centers. While some universities temporarily made standardized tests optional during the pandemic, many elite institutions have reinstated the requirement for test scores.

One website, bluebook.plus, appears to imitate the official College Board Bluebook platform and offers paid “practice tests.” Some of the questions on the site seem to match actual SAT content, potentially giving students an unfair advantage. According to Similarweb, bluebook.plus received around 875,000 visitors in November, and domain records suggest it is based in China. The site did not respond to requests for comment.

Concerns about SAT security mirror issues seen with other digital exams, including the LSAT and GRE. The College Board, in written statements, emphasized that cheating remains rare, affecting less than 0.01 percent of test scores, and that overall scores have remained stable since the digital transition. Nevertheless, the organization acknowledged that some individuals attempt to exploit anxious students and parents, particularly in international markets.

To strengthen security, the digital SAT is adaptive: students who perform well early on receive more challenging questions. Questions are drawn from a pool of several hundred thousand items. Testing centers also employ human proctors, and the Bluebook platform requires students to close all other applications during the exam. Despite these measures, the College Board is aware of screenshots captured during testing and efforts using hardware or software to bypass security.

Various online forums and coding websites share techniques for evading Bluebook protections, such as using plug-ins disguised as a mouse that actually capture video, or “sandbox” programs that operate undetected on a computer. Some posts even discuss remotely controlling a student’s laptop to complete the exam, though experts warn that many such ads are scams.

Cheating on standardized tests is not a new problem. The Varsity Blues scandal, for example, involved wealthy parents paying to have proxies take exams or alter answers. Paper SATs have also been leaked in the past. Rob Franek, editor-in-chief of Princeton Review, noted that cheating has existed since standardized testing began, and digital exams are no exception.

Recent allegations of cheating follow breaches in digital LSAT and GRE tests, where students often took exams remotely. In 2024, several graduate business schools rescinded offers after discovering GRE cheating among students in Ghana and Nigeria who completed exams from home. The LSAT, administered in China exclusively in a remote format, was suspended after growing concerns about organized cheating networks.

The Law School Admission Council highlighted systematic efforts by companies in mainland China to facilitate cheating on multiple standardized exams. These services were first exposed when a Chinese law student in the United States reported advertisements for cheating on social media.

Rachel Schoenig, former head of security at the ACT and now CEO of Cornerstone Strategies, described test security as a continuous cat-and-mouse game. She confirmed that while some cheating tools are scams, no system can be completely foolproof. Experts have also pointed to allowing students to use personal laptops as a significant vulnerability.

Security breaches are not confined to standardized admissions tests. Some companies now offer to take college exams for students for a fee. For instance, Cornell Law School investigated a contracts exam breach in December when a paid test-taker shared screenshots online after remotely accessing a student’s computer.

The SAT tutor who alerted the College Board confirmed some leaked questions by comparing them with retired questions that the College Board later published. In some cases, metadata suggested questions were shared online almost immediately after testing, creating opportunities for “time zone cheating.” Exam content has also been sold on platforms like Telegram and posted on subscription sites such as Scribd, though many of these materials were later removed.

Despite efforts to take down unauthorized sites, the College Board has struggled to manage platforms like bluebook.plus. A College Board security official noted that while some content may be authentic, no site contains the full set of SAT questions.