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Security report for berkeley.edu

University of California, Berkeley · Education · United States

Medium risk. 8 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of California, Berkeley website serves as the official digital presence of a leading public research university in the United States. It offers comprehensive information about academic programs, research initiatives, campus life, admissions, and financial aid. The site targets prospective and current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the general public, emphasizing its position as a top-ranked institution with a rich history and global impact. The business model centers on education, research, and community engagement within the public university sector. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern plugins such as Yoast SEO and integrates Google Tag Manager for analytics. It employs responsive design, accessibility features, and SEO best practices, ensuring a high-quality user experience across devices. The site uses HTTPS with strong SSL configuration, although some security headers are not explicitly detected. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were found. From a security perspective, the site demonstrates good practices including secure forms and encrypted connections. However, it lacks explicit incident response contacts and a vulnerability disclosure policy, which are recommended for enhanced transparency and security posture. Privacy compliance is indicated by the presence of a comprehensive privacy policy, though a cookie consent mechanism is not clearly implemented. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and well-maintained, reflecting the stature of UC Berkeley. The absence of WHOIS data for the queried subdomain does not detract from the legitimacy, given the authoritative content and branding. Strategic recommendations include improving security headers, publishing security policies, and enhancing cookie consent to align with best practices and regulatory requirements.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of berkeley.edu. View the latest report

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

8 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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 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';…

  2. 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

    • High

      No Cookie Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

  3. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

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

Keep watching berkeley.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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Full report

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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
47
Security headers
35
Email security
60
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

UC Berkeley holds a dominant market position as the #1 public research university in the U.S., with a broad portfolio of over 300 degree programs and extensive research activities. Its competitive advantage lies in its academic excellence, Nobel laureates on faculty, and a strong global reputation. Revenue streams primarily come from tuition, research grants, donations, and public funding. The target customer segments include undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and academic collaborators worldwide. The university maintains a robust partnership ecosystem with affiliated research units, extension programs, and community initiatives. Operationally, the institution leverages digital platforms to engage stakeholders and disseminate knowledge effectively.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and no visible exposure of sensitive data. Use of secure forms and modern JavaScript libraries reduces risk. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security represents an area for improvement. There is no publicly available incident response or vulnerability disclosure information, which could hinder timely reporting and mitigation of security issues. GDPR compliance is partially addressed via a privacy policy, but cookie consent mechanisms are lacking. Overall, the security culture appears sound but could benefit from enhanced transparency and policy publication.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to harden the site against common web attacks.
  2. Publish an incident response policy and provide clear security contact channels to facilitate vulnerability reporting and response.
  3. Develop and deploy a cookie consent banner/mechanism to ensure full GDPR and privacy regulation compliance.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and plugins for vulnerabilities and update them promptly.
  5. Enhance transparency by publishing a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to build trust with security researchers and users.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of California, Berkeley
Description
UC Berkeley pushes the boundaries of knowledge, challenges convention and expands opportunity to create the leaders of tomorrow.
Key services
Undergraduate and graduate degree programs, Research programs and publications, Campus life and student services, Admissions and financial aid, Public events and community engagement
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, Google Tag Manager, jQuery, FontAwesome, YouTube iframe API
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of secure forms with proper labels

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

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. Strong branding consistent with University of California, Berkeley.
  3. No signs of phishing or malware.
  4. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found in main HTML; contact primarily via forms and directory links.
  5. No explicit cookie consent mechanism detected despite GDPR compliance indications.
  6. Use of modern web technologies and SEO best practices.
  7. WHOIS data unavailable for subdomain query; base domain likely registered and managed by University of California.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by WordPress CMS with Yoast SEO plugin, leveraging modern web technologies such as jQuery, FontAwesome, and Google Tag Manager for analytics and marketing. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility considerations. Performance is moderate, with multimedia content such as videos integrated efficiently. The technical infrastructure appears well-maintained with no broken links or errors detected. Opportunities exist to improve security headers and cookie consent implementation. Hosting details are not explicitly identified but likely managed by a reputable provider given the institution's profile.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 64/100Medium34 findingsView report
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