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Security report for bates.edu

Bates College · Education · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

0–100, higher is better. How it is calculated

Bates College is a well-established, nationally recognized liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine. The institution offers a broad range of academic programs and emphasizes inclusivity, academic excellence, and social responsibility. The website serves multiple audiences including prospective and current students, faculty, alumni, and families, providing comprehensive information about admissions, academics, campus life, and events. The college maintains a strong digital presence with official social media accounts and a modern, well-structured website built on WordPress. Technically, the website leverages a modern CMS platform with integration of popular analytics and marketing tools such as Google Tag Manager and TikTok Pixel. The site is mobile-optimized, accessible, and performs moderately well. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and no visible sensitive data exposure, though there is room for improvement in security headers and incident response transparency. Privacy compliance is partially met with a comprehensive privacy policy but lacks a cookie consent mechanism. Overall, Bates College's website reflects a professional and trustworthy educational institution with strong branding and content quality. The absence of WHOIS data is consistent with .edu domain privacy policies and does not detract from the domain's legitimacy. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, implementing cookie consent, and publishing vulnerability disclosure information to further strengthen trust and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
7of 7

NIS2 Art. 21(2)

  1. (a) Risk analysis and security policies: Not visible from outside
  2. (b) Incident handling: One indicator
  3. (c) Business continuity, backups and crisis management: Not visible from outside
  4. (d) Supply chain security: Not visible from outside
  5. (e) Secure acquisition, development and maintenance, including vulnerability handling: Partly checked
  6. (f) Assessing the effectiveness of security measures: Not visible from outside
  7. (g) Cyber hygiene and security training: Not visible from outside
  8. (h) Cryptography and encryption: Partly checked
  9. (i) HR security, access control and asset management: One indicator
  10. (j) Multi-factor authentication and secured communications: Not visible from outside

This scan rated NIS2 with an earlier keyword method that is no longer shown; rescan for the per-article view. Risk management, continuity, supply chain, training, MFA, management oversight (Art. 20) and incident reporting (Art. 23) need internal evidence, and Guard cannot tell whether NIS2 applies to this organisation.

GDPR is indicative only, based on publicly visible signals: Articles 7, 12, 13 and 32 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive. Not a certification or legal assessment.

Priority findings

6 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. SSL/TLS

    TLS encrypts the connection and proves the site is really yours. Weak or expiring certificates trigger browser warnings and put traffic at risk.

    • High

      Weak Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

  2. Security headers

    Security headers are instructions your web server sends to every visitor’s browser. Missing ones leave visitors more exposed to attacks such as clickjacking and injected scripts.

    • High

      Missing Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • High

      Missing Content-Security-Policy header

      Controls resources the browser is allowed to load

      What to do: Implement a Content-Security-Policy appropriate for your application

      • ASVS V3.4.3
      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; form-action 'self'; base-uri 'self'; object-src 'none';…

  3. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • High

      No Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching bates.edu

This scan found 25 issues across 6 checks. Monitoring re-runs those checks daily, emails you when something material changes and records each fix, so you can show progress.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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Results by check

Each check with its score, findings and the evidence it collected.

How this score is calculated

The security score runs 0–100, higher is better. It is the plain average of the security checks that completed in this scan, each counted equally. A check that could not run is left out: it counts neither as a pass nor as a fail.

Counted in this score

SSL/TLS
52
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
63

Not counted

  • NIS2 outside view: Re-weights evidence from the TLS, email, DNS, network and hygiene checks, so counting it would count that evidence twice. Shown on its own.
  • OffSeq Observations: An AI reading of the site, useful context but not reproducible evidence. Shown on its own.

Findings that cap the score at 49

Each of these is serious on its own, so while any is present the site cannot rate better than high risk, however good the other checks are.

  • The certificate is not trusted by browsers
  • The website is not served over HTTPS
  • A database, remote desktop, file-sharing or Telnet service is reachable from the internet
  • The page loads a script from a compromised source
  • The domain registration has expired
  • SPF authorises every server to send mail as the domain

Partial scans

When the site blocks Guard or most checks cannot run, the score covers only the checks that ran (usually DNS and email), is capped at 75 and is shown as partial, without a risk level.

Risk levels

  • Critical0–25
  • High26–49
  • Medium50–75
  • Low76–100

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

Bates College operates as a non-profit educational institution focused on undergraduate liberal arts education. It holds a strong market position as a nationally recognized residential college with a commitment to academic excellence and social responsibility. The college's business model centers on tuition, donations, and alumni engagement, supported by a robust digital presence that facilitates admissions, campus visits, and community outreach. The institution targets students, parents, faculty, and alumni, leveraging partnerships with athletics and donation platforms. Growth indicators include active event programming and strategic planning initiatives. The college's operations are supported by a modern web infrastructure and consistent branding, reinforcing its reputation in the higher education sector.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS encryption and no exposed sensitive information in the HTML content. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents an area for improvement. The use of third-party analytics and marketing scripts introduces moderate tracking but no evident vulnerabilities. The lack of published incident response contacts or vulnerability disclosure policies limits transparency and readiness for security incidents. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by adopting additional best practices and improving privacy compliance mechanisms.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Deploy a cookie consent banner to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  3. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  4. Provide clear incident response contact information accessible from the website.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts to mitigate potential security risks.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Bates College
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Bates College
Description
Bates College is a coeducational, nonsectarian, nationally recognized residential college of the liberal arts and sciences in Lewiston, Maine.
Key services
Undergraduate education, Campus visits and virtual tours, Academic programs including majors and minors, Alumni relations and events, Student financial services
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 7.0, jQuery 3.7.1, Google Tag Manager, TikTok Pixel, Fast.fonts.net, Bates custom plugins and themes
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of async and defer for scripts to improve performance

Analytics and tracking

Services
TikTok Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Bates custom web analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
TikTok Pixel
Marketing tools
TikTok Analytics
Transparency
basic

Site quality

Design
excellent
User experience
excellent
Content relevance
excellent
Navigation
excellent
Professionalism
excellent
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and multimedia
  2. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected
  3. Strong branding and consistent design
  4. Use of modern web technologies and CMS
  5. Presence of multiple official social media accounts
  6. No explicit security.txt or incident response info found
  7. No cookie consent banner detected despite tracking scripts
  8. WHOIS data unavailable likely due to .edu domain privacy policies
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress 7.0 with a custom Bates theme and plugins, utilizing jQuery 3.7.1 and asynchronous loading of analytics scripts for performance optimization. The site uses modern web fonts and responsive design techniques to ensure excellent mobile usability and accessibility. Performance is moderate, with opportunities to improve load times by optimizing images and script delivery. The technical infrastructure is stable and well-maintained, supporting a professional user experience. However, the hosting provider is not explicitly identified, and some security best practices such as security headers are missing, representing technical debt that should be addressed.
Standards and sources

Reference chips under each finding point to the standard, regulation or specification the finding relates to. They are taken from the official datasets below and mapped conservatively: a finding with no defensible link shows none. NIS2 and GDPR references mark where a finding is relevant evidence, not a compliance verdict. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690 binds digital infrastructure and digital service providers; for other entities it is the most detailed public reading of the Article 21 measures. WCAG, EN 301 549, European Accessibility Act and Web Accessibility Directive references name the requirement an automated accessibility rule relates to; they are not a conformance verdict.

Retrieved 2026-10-25

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