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Security report for edgehill.ac.uk

Edge Hill University · Education · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 2 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

66/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Edge Hill University is a well-established higher education institution based in the United Kingdom, founded in 1885. The university offers a broad range of undergraduate, postgraduate, and research courses, with a strong emphasis on initial teacher education, as evidenced by its Ofsted Outstanding Provider status. The website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive content targeting prospective and current students, staff, and other stakeholders. The university holds a strong market position, recognized for its teaching excellence and student accommodation quality. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern plugins and technologies such as Algolia for search and OneTrust for cookie consent, ensuring good performance, SEO, and accessibility. Security posture is robust with HTTPS enforced, cookie consent mechanisms, and no visible vulnerabilities, although dedicated security and incident response policies are not publicly found. Overall, the site demonstrates high professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy regulations.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
63/ 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

2 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

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

Keep watching edgehill.ac.uk

This scan found 15 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
0
Security headers
80
Email security
80
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
63
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 edgehill.ac.uk, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
2,296
Employees
180
Customers
1,635
Third parties
481
Weak passwords
9%

Latest record dated 2026-06-18 · 40 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for edgehill.ac.uk.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –idp.edgehill.ac.uk2026-06-18
  • –fs.edgehill.ac.uk2026-06-17
  • –fs.edgehill.ac.uk2026-06-13
  • –edgehillsport.edgehill.ac.uk2026-06-10
  • –edgehillsport.edgehill.ac.uk2026-06-09

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Open in Breach(opens in a new tab)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

Edge Hill University operates in the education sector, serving a large audience including students, researchers, and academic staff. Its business model revolves around delivering academic programs and campus services. The university's competitive advantages include recognized teaching quality, strong student accommodation rankings, and comprehensive support services. The website's integration with marketing and analytics tools like Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager supports data-driven decision-making. Partnerships and external links are primarily to trusted service providers and educational resources. The institution's long history and consistent domain registration reinforce its credibility. Growth indicators include active news, events, and research updates, reflecting ongoing engagement with its community.

Security posture

The university's website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enabled and standard security headers likely in place. The use of OneTrust for cookie management indicates compliance with GDPR and privacy best practices. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a publicly accessible security policy or incident response contact limits transparency in security governance. There is also no evidence of a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file. Overall, the security measures are solid for a public-facing educational website, but improvements in policy transparency and incident response readiness are recommended.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security governance and controls.
  2. Provide clear incident response contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  3. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  4. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and plugins to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance security headers with explicit Content-Security-Policy rules to reduce risk of XSS and related attacks.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Edge Hill University
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Edge Hill University
Description
Edge Hill, Ofsted Outstanding Provider for ITE, is a campus university in Lancashire (near Liverpool), offering a range of undergrad, postgrad & research courses.
Key services
Undergraduate courses, Postgraduate courses, Research degrees, Campus facilities, Student support and wellbeing
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, Algolia Search, jQuery, Slick Carousel, Fslightbox, OneTrust Cookie Consent, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Chart.js
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security and privacy plugins (OneTrust)
  • No visible vulnerable libraries detected

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ads
Marketing tools
Algolia Search
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 maintained university site with comprehensive content.
  2. Strong compliance with privacy and cookie regulations including GDPR.
  3. Use of modern web technologies and SEO best practices.
  4. No signs of blocking or security challenges.
  5. Contact information is clearly provided in footer.
  6. Cookie consent is managed by OneTrust with detailed categories.
  7. No visible security policy or incident response page found.
  8. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS, leveraging a modern tech stack including jQuery, Algolia search, Slick Carousel, and OneTrust for cookie consent. SEO is enhanced via Yoast SEO plugin with comprehensive meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD). The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features. Performance is moderate, with use of CDN resources for fonts and scripts. The technical infrastructure appears well-maintained with no visible errors or broken elements. Opportunities exist to improve hosting transparency and implement advanced security headers. Overall, the technical implementation supports a professional and user-friendly experience aligned with the university's brand.
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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