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Security report for diku.no

Direktoratet for høyere utdanning og kompetanse · Education · Norway

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

58/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Direktoratet for høyere utdanning og kompetanse (HK-dir) is a Norwegian government agency responsible for national administration and policy implementation in higher education, vocational education, and competence development. Established in 2021 through a merger of several agencies, it serves as a key authority in Norway's education sector, providing services such as career guidance, foreign education recognition, funding programs, and statistical reporting. The website targets professionals and stakeholders in education and workforce development within Norway. Technically, the website is built using modern web technologies including Next.js and Sanity CMS, with integration of Google Fonts and Siteimprove Analytics. The site is well-structured, mobile-optimized, and provides good accessibility and SEO features. However, performance is moderate with a load time of approximately 5.8 seconds. From a security perspective, the site lacks a valid SSL certificate and does not support HTTPS, which is a critical vulnerability. No security headers or advanced TLS configurations are present, exposing the site to potential risks. Privacy compliance is strong, with a comprehensive GDPR-compliant privacy policy and clear contact information. No cookie consent mechanism or terms of service were found. Overall, while the business and content aspects are solid and trustworthy, the lack of HTTPS and proper SSL configuration significantly lowers the security posture and overall risk rating. Immediate remediation of SSL/TLS issues is recommended to protect user data and enhance trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
25/ 100 · Critical
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

7 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 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';…

  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

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

Keep watching diku.no

This scan found 21 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
50
Security headers
35
Email security
55
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
25
Average
58

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

HK-dir holds a strong market position as the national authority for higher education and competence policy in Norway. Its business model is government-funded, focusing on policy implementation, administration, and coordination. The agency offers a broad range of services including funding programs, career guidance, foreign education recognition, and statistical reporting. The target audience includes educational institutions, professionals in education and workforce sectors, and the general public seeking guidance or information. The organization is medium-sized with approximately 450 employees and offices in multiple Norwegian cities and Brussels. The website content and structure reflect a professional government entity with consistent branding and trust signals such as official social media channels and comprehensive contact details.

Security posture

The current security posture of the website is weak due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support. This exposes the site and its users to risks such as data interception and man-in-the-middle attacks. Additionally, the lack of security headers and modern TLS protocols further weakens the security stance. No vulnerabilities like Heartbleed or POODLE were detected, but the missing HTTPS is a critical issue. Privacy practices are well documented and GDPR compliant, but the absence of cookie consent mechanisms is a minor compliance gap. Incident response and security policy information are not publicly available, which could impact transparency and preparedness. Overall, the site requires urgent security improvements to meet modern standards and protect user data.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable outdated protocols.
  3. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload directives.
  4. Add essential security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and Referrer-Policy.
  5. Introduce a cookie consent mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and inform users about tracking.
  6. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to enhance transparency.
  7. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and dependencies to avoid vulnerabilities.
  8. Improve website performance to reduce load times and enhance user experience.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Direktoratet for høyere utdanning og kompetanse
Registration number
974788985
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Next.js framework with React, leveraging Sanity CMS for content management. It uses Google Fonts for typography and Siteimprove Analytics for performance and accessibility monitoring. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with good SEO meta tags and Open Graph data. Hosting appears to be on a Norwegian IP address with DNS managed by hyp.net nameservers. Performance is moderate with a load time of 5.87 seconds and a page size of approximately 36 KB. However, the lack of SSL/TLS and HTTPS support is a significant technical deficiency. No DNSSEC or CAA records are configured, which could improve DNS security. The site uses multiple internal and external links, including government and educational resources, enhancing content richness and authority.
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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