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Security report for corkcollegeofcommerce.ie

Cork College of FET - Youghal Campus · Education · Ireland

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

56/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Cork College of FET Morrison’s Island Campus is a well-established further education and training institution under the Cork Education and Training Board in Ireland. It offers a wide range of courses, apprenticeships, and degree programs across multiple campuses, targeting students seeking career advancement and educational progression. The institution benefits from government and EU co-funding, reinforcing its legitimacy and public service mission. The website is professionally designed with clear navigation, comprehensive content, and active social media engagement, reflecting a mature digital presence. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern plugins and themes, optimized for SEO and mobile responsiveness. Security posture is strong with HTTPS, security headers, and cookie consent mechanisms in place, although there is room for improvement in publishing explicit security policies and incident response information. Overall, the site demonstrates a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy regulations.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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

5 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. GDPR outside view

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

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

  2. 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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. 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';…

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

Keep watching corkcollegeofcommerce.ie

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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
0
Security headers
15
Email security
80
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
56

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 business operates as a public educational provider with a focus on further education and training in the Cork region. Its market position is solid, supported by multiple campuses and a broad course offering. The business model relies on public funding and partnerships with educational and governmental bodies. The presence of a progressions database and industry connections indicates a strategic approach to student career pathways. The website’s partnership ecosystem includes application tracking services and regional campuses, enhancing its operational reach. Growth indicators include a large student base and extensive course catalog. The company maintains a consistent brand and communicates trust signals such as government logos and registered charity status.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, presence of key security headers, and use of security hardening plugins. Cookie consent is managed via a reputable third-party service, ensuring GDPR compliance. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a public security policy and incident response contact details suggests an opportunity to enhance transparency and readiness. The site uses third-party scripts including analytics and chat services, which should be regularly audited for security. Overall, the security maturity is good but could benefit from formal documentation and disclosure.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and controls.
  2. Add incident response contact information such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  3. Implement and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file.
  4. Enhance website accessibility features to meet higher compliance standards.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and plugins to mitigate vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Cork Education and Training Board
Registration number
Registered Charity Number: 20083274
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Cork College of FET - Youghal Campus
Description
Cork College of FET Morrison’s Island Campus is a City Centre Campus of Cork Education and Training Board (Cork ETB) offering a broad range of courses across multiple campuses including Youghal, Macroom, and West Cork. The institution focuses on inclusive education, higher education links, and industry connections to provide career opportunities.
Key services
Further Education and Training courses, Apprenticeships, Degree courses, Student support services, Progressions database
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Divi Theme, Revolution Slider, jQuery, CookieYes Consent Management, Tidio Chat
Frameworks
Yoast SEO
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security hardening plugin (wp-security-hardening)

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Marketing tools
CookieYes Consent Management, Tidio Chat
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally designed educational institution site.
  2. Comprehensive cookie consent and privacy policy mechanisms are implemented.
  3. Multiple campuses and course offerings are clearly presented.
  4. Social media presence is active and linked.
  5. No critical security issues or WAF blocking detected.
  6. Use of modern WordPress plugins and themes with SEO optimization.
  7. Contact information is clearly provided with multiple channels.
  8. No terms of service page found, which is common for educational sites.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress using the Divi theme and several plugins including Revolution Slider, Divi Modules Table Maker, Divi Plus, and WPForms. It employs modern web fonts and lazy loading for performance optimization. SEO is enhanced via the Yoast SEO plugin with structured data (JSON-LD) for organization and webpage metadata. The site uses Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager for analytics tracking. Cookie consent is managed by CookieYes, and live chat is provided by Tidio. The site demonstrates moderate loading performance and good mobile optimization. Technical debt appears low with current technologies and no deprecated libraries detected. Hosting provider details are not explicitly identified in the HTML content.
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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