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Security report for cluster.org

CLUSTER - Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Education and Research · Education · Finland

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

CLUSTER is a consortium of 12 elite European universities specializing in science and technology education and research. The organization represents a large academic community with thousands of professors, staff, and students. The website serves as an informational hub for students, academic staff, and partners, providing details on programs, initiatives, and consortium activities. The site is built on WordPress with common plugins for SEO and forms, hosted by Gandi SAS, and secured with HTTPS. However, it lacks explicit privacy and cookie policies, and DNSSEC is not enabled, representing minor security gaps. Social media presence is limited to Twitter and LinkedIn, enhancing professional outreach. Overall, the website is professional, content-rich, and trustworthy, but could improve privacy compliance and security hardening.

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

6 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 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

    • 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

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

Keep watching cluster.org

This scan found 17 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.

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  • 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
95
Security headers
50
Email security
90
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
74

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention cluster.org, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
10
Employees
0
Customers
10
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
30%

1 subdomain affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for cluster.org.

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Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

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Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

The consortium operates in the education sector, targeting students, researchers, and academic institutions across Europe and globally. Its business model is collaborative, focusing on multi-location university partnerships to offer joint degrees, exchanges, and research initiatives. The organization holds a strong market position as an elite network of science and technology universities. The website reflects a mature digital presence with structured content and clear navigation. Partnerships and initiatives like the Sino-EU platform and various working groups indicate active engagement and growth. Revenue streams likely come from member contributions and educational program fees, though not explicitly stated. The consortium's ecosystem includes academic institutions and international collaborations.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and has domain transfer protections in place, indicating a baseline security posture. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers reduces its defense-in-depth. The presence of unconfigured analytics plugins and lack of explicit security or incident response policies suggest room for improvement in security governance. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files were found, limiting transparency for security researchers. Overall, the security posture is moderate but could be enhanced by implementing DNSSEC, security headers, and formal security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to protect against DNS spoofing and improve domain security.
  2. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to enhance GDPR compliance.
  3. Configure or remove unused analytics plugins to reduce attack surface and improve privacy.
  4. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  5. Establish and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact information.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
CLUSTER - Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Education and Research
Description
CLUSTER is a consortium of 12 elite European Universities in Science and Engineering representing a multi-location European University of Science and Technology with about 3,000 professors, 11,000 academic staff, 14,000 PhD students, and more than 140,000 students in total.
Key services
Student exchange, Dual degree programmes, Doctoral programmes, Sustainability programmes, Research initiatives and statements
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, jQuery, bb-plugin (Beaver Builder), Contact Form 7, Theme My Login, WP Accessibility plugin, CF7 Conditional Fields
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
65/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional consortium site for European universities in science and technology.
  2. Content is rich with educational and organizational information.
  3. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found on the homepage or main navigation.
  4. No visible security or incident response policies.
  5. Social media presence on Twitter and LinkedIn only.
  6. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the main content; contact forms are available.
  7. Uses WordPress CMS with common plugins for SEO and forms.
  8. No DNSSEC enabled, which is a minor security gap.
  9. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  10. No explicit data protection officer contact found.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS using a modern theme (Astra) and several plugins including Yoast SEO, Contact Form 7, and Beaver Builder for layout. The tech stack is standard for educational institutions, providing good SEO and content management capabilities. Performance is moderate with responsive design and basic accessibility features. Hosting is provided by Gandi SAS, a reputable registrar and hosting provider. The site lacks advanced security configurations such as DNSSEC and security headers. Google Analytics is installed but not configured, indicating potential technical debt or incomplete setup. Overall, the technical infrastructure is solid but could benefit from security and privacy enhancements.
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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