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Security report for discoveruni.gov.uk

Discover Uni · Education · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

66/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Discover Uni is an official UK government website providing authoritative data, information, and guidance about higher education options across the UK. It targets prospective undergraduate students, offering course search and comparison tools alongside advice on applying and starting university. The platform holds a strong market position as a trusted source of official higher education data. Technically, the website employs a modern technology stack including jQuery, Bootstrap, FontAwesome, and Google Tag Manager. It is mobile optimized, accessible, and uses HTTPS to secure communications. Performance is moderate with good SEO and accessibility features, although some improvements in security headers could enhance its posture. Security-wise, the site enforces HTTPS and uses CSRF tokens in forms, demonstrating good security practices. However, the absence of explicit security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms indicates room for maturity. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the provided content. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and well-suited for its educational mission. Strategic improvements in privacy compliance and security transparency would further strengthen its risk profile and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
83/ 100 · Low
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. 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

    • High

      No SPF record found

      SPF helps prevent email spoofing

      What to do: Add SPF record: "v=spf1 include:_spf.yourmailprovider.com ~all"

  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 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. 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 SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching discoveruni.gov.uk

This scan found 23 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
50
Email security
40
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
83
Average
66

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 discoveruni.gov.uk, from OffSeq Breach.

No leaked records found

Breach holds no records for discoveruni.gov.uk right now. New leaks arrive continuously, so monitoring on Breach alerts you if that changes.

Monitor on Breach (opens in a new tab)

Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

Discover Uni operates as a government-backed educational information platform, serving the UK higher education sector. Its competitive advantage lies in its official status and comprehensive data coverage, making it a primary resource for prospective students. The business model focuses on providing free access to course data and guidance, likely funded by government education budgets. Target customers are students, parents, teachers, and advisers. The platform's partnership ecosystem includes numerous UK universities and colleges, as evidenced by the extensive institution list. Growth indicators include continuous content updates and integration of user-friendly search and comparison tools.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a solid baseline security posture with HTTPS enforcement and secure form handling via CSRF tokens. However, the lack of visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and absence of published security policies or incident response contacts suggest gaps in security maturity. There is no evidence of vulnerability disclosure programs or security.txt files. Compliance with GDPR is implied but not explicitly documented. The site does not expose sensitive data or use vulnerable libraries in the provided content. Overall, security practices are good but could be enhanced with formal policies and additional technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Add security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to strengthen technical security.
  3. Publish a security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and readiness.
  4. Introduce a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Regularly audit third-party libraries and scripts to ensure no vulnerable components are used.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Discover Uni
Description
Discover Uni is the official source of data, information and guidance about higher education across the UK. It provides information and resources to help users research higher education options and search and compare official data for undergraduate courses.
Key services
Course search, Course comparison, Advice on applying and starting university
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.3.1, Bootstrap 4.5.0, FontAwesome 5.8.1 and 4.5.0, Google Fonts (Nunito Sans, Montserrat), Google Tag Manager
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • CSRF token in forms
  • Use of secure external libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website uses a UK government .gov.uk domain indicating official status.
  2. Content is comprehensive for prospective university students in the UK.
  3. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages detected in provided content.
  4. Forms use CSRF tokens indicating security awareness.
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found in the provided HTML snippet.
  6. External resources are loaded from reputable CDNs and Google services.
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  8. No social media links explicitly found in provided content.
  9. Website is mobile optimized and accessible with skip links and ARIA roles.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern and widely supported technology stack including jQuery, Bootstrap 4.5, and FontAwesome for UI components and icons. Google Fonts and Google Tag Manager are used for typography and analytics respectively. The site is mobile responsive and includes accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA roles. Performance appears moderate with asynchronous loading of analytics scripts. No CMS or hosting provider details were detected in the provided content. The site uses CSRF tokens in forms indicating secure form submission practices. Opportunities exist to improve technical security by adding security headers and enhancing privacy compliance mechanisms.
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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