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Security report for centerforthehumanities.org

CUNY Center for the Humanities · Education · United States

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

60/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center is a well-established academic and cultural institution founded in 2011, focused on fostering collaborative and engaged work in the humanities and social sciences. It offers innovative programming, digital and print publications, and project-based public scholarship, targeting academics, students, and the broader public interested in humanities research and community engagement. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand aligned with its parent organization, CUNY. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with a modern tech stack including jQuery, Moment.js, and Flickity for interactive elements. It is hosted with Cloudflare DNS and uses HTTPS, ensuring secure communication. The site is moderately performant and optimized for mobile devices, with good SEO practices implemented via the Yoast SEO plugin. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, and security headers are missing, which are areas for improvement. From a security perspective, the site demonstrates good baseline practices such as HTTPS and domain transfer protections but lacks explicit security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. Privacy compliance is weak, with no visible privacy or cookie policies or consent mechanisms, which could expose the organization to regulatory risks. No contact emails or phone numbers were found, limiting direct communication channels. Overall, the website is a credible and professional academic resource with strong content quality and business credibility. Strategic recommendations include implementing privacy and cookie policies, enabling DNSSEC, adding security headers, and publishing security and incident response information to enhance trust and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
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

9 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

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

Keep watching centerforthehumanities.org

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

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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
65
Security headers
30
Email security
60
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
60

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

The Center for the Humanities operates as a non-profit academic center affiliated with the City University of New York, focusing on humanities and social sciences scholarship. Its market position is that of a respected educational and cultural institution serving CUNY faculty, students, and the wider community. The business model revolves around providing programming, publications, fellowships, and public engagement projects. Revenue streams likely include grants, institutional funding, and possibly publication sales. The target customer segments include academics, researchers, students, and public audiences interested in humanities scholarship. The organization demonstrates growth through diverse projects and events, and partnerships primarily within the CUNY ecosystem. The website's professional presentation and consistent branding support its strategic positioning as a trusted academic resource.

Security posture

The website's security posture is moderate. It uses HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate and has domain transfer and update protections enabled, which are positive indicators. However, the absence of DNSSEC reduces domain security against DNS spoofing attacks. No security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options were detected, which could expose the site to certain web-based attacks. There is no published security policy or incident response information, limiting transparency and preparedness. The use of third-party libraries and plugins like WooCommerce and jQuery requires ongoing maintenance to avoid vulnerabilities. No exposed sensitive data or obvious vulnerabilities were found in the content. Overall, the site would benefit from enhanced security controls and published policies to improve its security maturity and compliance posture.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to strengthen domain name system security.
  2. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie policy with consent mechanisms to ensure GDPR and privacy compliance.
  3. Implement security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to mitigate common web vulnerabilities.
  4. Add a security policy page and incident response contact information to improve transparency and readiness.
  5. Regularly update all plugins, libraries, and the WordPress core to mitigate vulnerabilities and maintain security.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
CUNY Center for the Humanities
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
CUNY Center for the Humanities
Description
The Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center encourages collaborative, creative and engaged work in the humanities and social sciences at CUNY and across the city through innovative programming, digital and print publications, and project-based public scholarship.
Key services
Innovative programming, Digital and print publications, Project-based public scholarship, Events and workshops, Fellowships and research support
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery, Moment.js, Underscore.js, CLNDR.js, Flickity carousel, WooCommerce, Yoast SEO plugin, WordPress
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status includes clientTransferProhibited and clientUpdateProhibited
  • No exposed sensitive data detected

Analytics and tracking

Services
WordPress.com Stats
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
stats.wp.com
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally maintained academic center site affiliated with CUNY.
  2. Content is rich, relevant, and well-structured with multiple projects and events.
  3. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found on the homepage or main sections.
  4. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found in the provided content.
  5. Uses modern JavaScript libraries and WordPress CMS with WooCommerce plugin.
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure page detected.
  7. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  8. No social media links explicitly found in the provided content.
  9. DNSSEC is not enabled, which is a minor security gap.
  10. Site uses Cloudflare DNS but no WAF challenge detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with a modern JavaScript stack including jQuery, Moment.js, Underscore.js, CLNDR.js, and Flickity for UI components. It uses the Yoast SEO plugin for search engine optimization and WooCommerce for e-commerce capabilities. Hosting is supported by Cloudflare DNS services, although no WAF challenge was detected. The site demonstrates good mobile responsiveness and accessibility basics but could improve accessibility features further. Performance is moderate, with multiple external scripts and stylesheets loaded from CDNs. The site uses structured data (JSON-LD) for SEO enhancement. There is no evidence of technical debt or deprecated technologies, but security-related technical improvements are recommended.
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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