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Security report for dsuathletics.com

Dakota State University · Education · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Dakota State University's official athletics website serves as a comprehensive platform for sports schedules, scores, news, and media related to the university's athletic programs. The site targets students, athletes, and sports fans, providing timely updates and multimedia content. The business model is focused on supporting university athletics and engaging the community through digital content. The website is well-branded and consistent with the university's identity, reflecting a medium-sized educational institution with a long-standing online presence since 2008. Technically, the site leverages a modern tech stack including Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, RequireJS, Knockout.js, and a specialized Sidearm Sports CMS platform. Hosting is via AWS Cloudfront CDN, ensuring reasonable performance and scalability. The site is mobile-optimized and includes accessibility features, though some improvements in security headers and library versions are recommended. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and has domain transfer protections, but lacks DNSSEC and comprehensive security headers like Content Security Policy. The use of an outdated jQuery version poses potential vulnerabilities. Privacy compliance is basic, with a privacy policy present but no visible cookie consent mechanism. Contact information and incident response details are not prominently available, indicating areas for enhancement. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and serves its audience well, but could benefit from improved security practices and enhanced privacy compliance to align with modern standards and regulations.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
70/ 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. 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

  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 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. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

  4. 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 dsuathletics.com

This scan found 22 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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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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
62
Security headers
65
Email security
60
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
70
Average
71

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

Dakota State University holds a stable position in the educational athletics sector, leveraging its official website to engage stakeholders and promote its sports programs. The site supports multiple sports teams with dedicated social media channels, schedules, and live media, indicating a well-organized athletics department. Revenue streams likely include ticket sales, sponsorships, and university funding. The partnership ecosystem includes Sidearm Sports for platform services and various advertising networks. Growth indicators include active content updates and integration of live streaming. Strategic observations suggest focusing on enhancing digital security and privacy to maintain stakeholder trust and comply with evolving regulations.

Security posture

The current security posture is moderate. HTTPS is enforced, and domain registration is transparent and consistent with the university's identity. However, the absence of DNSSEC, outdated JavaScript libraries, and missing security headers like CSP and X-Content-Type-Options introduce risks. No explicit vulnerability disclosure or incident response policies are found, which could delay response to security incidents. Privacy compliance is minimal, lacking cookie consent mechanisms. The site should prioritize upgrading libraries, implementing security headers, enabling DNSSEC, and publishing clear security policies to strengthen its security maturity and reduce potential business impact.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Upgrade jQuery and other JavaScript libraries to current secure versions to mitigate known vulnerabilities.
  3. Implement Content Security Policy and other security headers (X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options) to protect against common web attacks.
  4. Add a visible cookie consent banner and improve privacy compliance to meet GDPR and other regulations.
  5. Publish a security policy and vulnerability disclosure page including contact channels for incident reporting.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Dakota State University
Description
The official athletics website for the Dakota State University
Key services
Sports schedules, Scores and results, Team rosters, News and updates, Live video and stats
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, RequireJS, jQuery 1.9.1, Knockout.js, Underscore.js, Headroom.js, LazySizes, Slick Carousel, Sidearm Sports platform
Frameworks
Sidearm Sports CMS, Knockout.js MVVM
Platforms
Cloudfront CDN, AWS S3
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • ClientTransferProhibited domain status
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, comScore, ScorecardResearch
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Google DoubleClick, PubMatic, Criteo, 33Across
Tracking pixels
comScore, ScorecardResearch
Marketing tools
Transcend Consent Manager
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and interactive features.
  2. Uses multiple third-party analytics and advertising services.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie consent banner detected despite privacy policy presence.
  4. No visible contact emails or phone numbers on the main page.
  5. Security headers are minimal; opportunity to improve security posture.
  6. Content is focused on university athletics with schedules, scores, and news.
  7. Mobile and accessibility features are implemented reasonably well.
  8. WHOIS data supports legitimacy and consistency with the university.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a robust technical infrastructure using Sidearm Sports CMS, supported by modern JavaScript frameworks like Knockout.js and RequireJS. It uses AWS Cloudfront CDN for content delivery, ensuring good availability and performance. The site is mobile-optimized and includes accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA labels. However, the use of an outdated jQuery version and lack of some security headers indicate technical debt and security risks. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and structured data. Performance is moderate, with opportunities to optimize script loading and reduce third-party dependencies for faster load times.
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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