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Security report for columbia.edu

Columbia University in the City of New York · Education · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Columbia University is a prestigious Ivy League educational institution with a rich history dating back to 1754. The website serves as a comprehensive portal for prospective and current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the general public, offering information on admissions, academics, research, campus life, and news. The site is professionally designed with consistent branding and rich multimedia content, reflecting the university's stature and commitment to intellectual rigor and public service. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 8 with AngularJS components, integrating modern web technologies and third-party services such as Google Analytics and YouTube embeds. Security posture is good with HTTPS enforced and some security best practices observed, though there is room for improvement in security headers and public security policies. Privacy compliance is moderate due to the absence of visible privacy and cookie policies on the homepage. Overall, the site is trustworthy, well-maintained, and serves its educational mission effectively.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
65/ 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. 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

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

  3. 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

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

Keep watching columbia.edu

This scan found 20 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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Recommended

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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
47
Security headers
55
Email security
75
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
65
Average
70

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

Columbia University operates as a non-profit educational entity focused on higher education and research. Its market position is strong as a leading Ivy League university with a global reputation. The business model centers on academic programs, research initiatives, and community engagement. The website targets a diverse audience including students, faculty, alumni, researchers, and the public. The university maintains partnerships with various affiliated domains and organizations, enhancing its ecosystem. The presence of official social media channels and event listings indicates active engagement and outreach. The lack of detailed WHOIS data is typical for .edu domains and does not detract from the institution's credibility.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and anonymized IP tracking in analytics. However, it lacks comprehensive security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security, which are recommended to mitigate common web vulnerabilities. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is publicly available, which could be improved to enhance transparency and readiness. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. The site uses secure embedded content and scripts from trusted sources. Overall, the security posture is good but could benefit from enhanced headers and published security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  2. Publish clear and accessible privacy and cookie policies with GDPR compliance details.
  3. Add a publicly accessible security.txt file and vulnerability disclosure policy to improve incident response transparency.
  4. Include explicit contact phone numbers for university offices to improve contactability.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and dependencies to ensure no vulnerable libraries are used.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Columbia University in the City of New York
Description
Columbia University is a prestigious higher education institution offering academic programs, research, campus life, and community engagement. It serves students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the public with a focus on intellectual rigor, open inquiry, and public good.
Key services
Admissions, Academic programs, Research, Campus life services, Community engagement, Alumni relations
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 8, AngularJS, YouTube embed, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Typekit fonts
Frameworks
Drupal, AngularJS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Anonymize IP in Google Analytics
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, 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. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
  3. Uses Drupal 8 CMS with AngularJS for dynamic content.
  4. Strong branding consistent with Columbia University.
  5. No explicit privacy or cookie policies found on homepage content.
  6. Multiple official social media links present.
  7. WHOIS data unavailable likely due to .edu domain restrictions.
  8. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  9. No contact phone numbers explicitly labeled found; only emails.
  10. Google Analytics and Tag Manager used with IP anonymization.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 8 CMS with AngularJS for dynamic content rendering. It uses Typekit for fonts and integrates Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager for analytics and marketing. Multimedia content includes YouTube and Vimeo video embeds. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA labels. Performance is moderate, with some room for optimization. The site uses canonical and shortlink meta tags for SEO. No major technical debt or deprecated technologies were detected, though AngularJS is an older framework and may require future modernization.
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. 70/100Medium27 findingsView report
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