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Security report for fernuni-hagen.de

FernUniversität in Hagen · Education · Germany

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

64/100

Risk levelMedium

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

FernUniversität in Hagen is Germany's only state distance university, offering a wide range of Bachelor and Master degree programs, continuing education, and academy studies. It serves a broad audience including prospective students, current students, alumni, researchers, and academic staff. The university maintains multiple campus locations across Germany and abroad, emphasizing accessibility and flexibility in education. The website reflects a professional and comprehensive digital presence aligned with its educational mission. Technically, the website employs modern web technologies such as Bootstrap 5 for responsive design, Matomo for privacy-conscious analytics, and SVG graphics for scalable visuals. Hosting appears to be managed via the German Research Network (DFN), supporting reliability and security. The site is well-optimized for mobile devices and accessibility, with clear navigation and rich content. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and avoids exposing sensitive data. However, it lacks some advanced HTTP security headers and a cookie consent mechanism, which are recommended for enhanced protection and compliance. No vulnerabilities or suspicious content were detected. Privacy compliance is strong, with a comprehensive privacy policy and a designated data protection officer contact. Overall, the website demonstrates a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and technical maturity, suitable for a large public educational institution. Strategic improvements in security headers and cookie consent would further strengthen its posture.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
33/ 100 · High
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

6 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

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

    • 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

  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 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 fernuni-hagen.de

This scan found 25 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.

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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
77
Security headers
40
Email security
70
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
33
Average
64

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 fernuni-hagen.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
4,513
Employees
19
Customers
4,223
Third parties
271
Weak passwords
7%

Latest record dated 2026-05-05 · 116 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 fernuni-hagen.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –moodle-wrm.fernuni-hagen.de2026-05-05
  • –www.fernuni-hagen.de2026-05-05
  • –mailstore.fernuni-hagen.de2026-05-05
  • –login.fernuni-hagen.de2026-01-06
  • –mailstore.fernuni-hagen.de2025-11-29

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

FernUniversität in Hagen holds a unique market position as the sole state distance university in Germany, targeting a diverse audience from students to academic professionals. Its business model focuses on providing flexible, remote higher education and research services. The university's extensive campus network supports regional accessibility. Revenue streams likely include public funding, tuition fees, and research grants. The institution maintains a strong partnership ecosystem, including collaborations with international universities such as the University of Namibia. The website's content and structure reflect a mature organization with clear growth and outreach strategies.

Security posture

The university's website exhibits a solid security foundation with enforced HTTPS and no visible exposure of sensitive information. The use of Matomo analytics aligns with privacy-conscious data collection. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options represents an area for improvement. There is no publicly available security policy or incident response contact, which could enhance transparency and readiness. No vulnerabilities or malicious indicators were found, indicating a low risk profile. Compliance with GDPR is evident through the privacy policy and data protection officer information.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive HTTP security headers including CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Introduce a cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply fully with GDPR and ePrivacy Directive requirements.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and stakeholder trust.
  4. Consider adding a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate potential vulnerabilities and maintain security hygiene.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
FernUniversität in Hagen
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
FernUniversität in Hagen
Description
Die FernUni ist die einzige staatliche Fernuniversität in Deutschland und bietet Bachelor- und Master-Studiengänge, Weiterbildungs- sowie Akademiestudien an.
Key services
Bachelor and Master degree programs, Continuing education, Academy studies, Research, Campus locations nationwide and abroad
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Bootstrap 5, Matomo Analytics, SVG graphics, JavaScript ES6+, HTML5, CSS3
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries
  • Secure forms with autocomplete off

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Marketing tools
Matomo Analytics
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is rich, professionally designed, and well structured.
  3. Strong focus on education and research with multiple campus locations.
  4. Contact information is clearly provided including phone, email, and physical addresses.
  5. No explicit privacy or cookie consent banners detected, which could be improved.
  6. Security posture is good but could benefit from additional HTTP security headers.
  7. Use of Matomo analytics indicates privacy-conscious tracking.
  8. No signs of suspicious or malicious content.
  9. Social media presence is broad and consistent with institutional branding.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern technology stack featuring Bootstrap 5 for responsive design and Matomo for analytics, indicating a focus on usability and privacy. The use of SVG images and deferred JavaScript loading contributes to performance optimization. Hosting via DFN suggests a reliable infrastructure. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with semantic HTML and ARIA attributes. SEO practices are good, with appropriate meta tags and structured navigation. There is no evidence of technical debt or deprecated technologies. Opportunities exist to enhance security headers and implement cookie consent for compliance.
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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