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Security report for hec.edu

HEC Paris · Education · France

Medium risk. 2 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

HEC Paris is a prestigious global business school based in France, offering a wide range of educational programs including Master's, MBA, PhD, Executive Education, Summer School, and Online programs. The institution is well-positioned in the education sector with strong international partnerships and accreditations such as AMBA, AACSB, and EQUIS. The website reflects a high level of professionalism, rich content, and excellent user experience targeting students, professionals, and corporate partners. Technically, the site is built on Drupal CMS with modern JavaScript libraries and integrates analytics and consent management tools. However, the security posture is weakened by an invalid or missing SSL certificate and lack of TLS protocol support, which is a critical issue. Privacy compliance is strong with clear policies and consent mechanisms. Overall, the site is trustworthy and credible but requires urgent SSL/TLS remediation to ensure secure communications.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of hec.edu. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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. 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

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

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

Keep watching hec.edu

This scan found 17 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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Recommended

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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
50
Security headers
60
Email security
80
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
73

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

HEC Paris operates as an essential educational entity focusing on business education and research. It leverages a comprehensive digital presence to engage diverse audiences including prospective students, alumni, and corporate partners. The business model is centered on delivering high-quality education, research, and executive training, supported by a robust network of global partnerships and accreditations. The institution actively promotes its programs and events worldwide, supported by a strong brand and trust signals. Revenue streams likely include tuition fees, executive education programs, donations via the HEC Foundation, and corporate collaborations. The website's extensive content and navigation structure indicate a mature digital strategy aimed at maximizing engagement and conversion.

Security posture

The website implements several security best practices including a strict Content Security Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection headers. However, the absence of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols represent critical vulnerabilities that expose users to potential interception and data compromise. The lack of HSTS and OCSP stapling further weakens the security posture. No explicit incident response or security policy pages were found, and there is no security.txt file for vulnerability disclosure. While no known vulnerabilities like Heartbleed or POODLE were detected, the SSL/TLS misconfiguration significantly reduces the overall security rating and poses a high risk to user data confidentiality and integrity.

Recommendations

  1. Immediately obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS with TLS 1.2 or higher.
  2. Configure and enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload options.
  3. Implement OCSP stapling to improve certificate revocation checking.
  4. Publish a security policy and incident response information on the website to improve transparency and readiness.
  5. Add a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure.
  6. Regularly audit third-party scripts and libraries to ensure no vulnerable components are included.
  7. Enhance monitoring and logging for security events and potential breaches.
  8. Maintain and update privacy and cookie policies to reflect evolving regulations and best practices.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by Drupal 10.4.3 CMS with extensive use of jQuery and jQuery UI libraries. It integrates Matomo for analytics and Didomi for consent management, indicating a mature approach to user tracking and privacy compliance. The site uses modern JavaScript libraries and tools like jsPDF for document generation. Performance data is not available, but the site appears moderately optimized with responsive design and accessibility features. The DNS configuration includes valid SPF and DMARC records, enhancing email security. However, DNSSEC is not enabled and CAA records appear misconfigured. The SSL/TLS configuration is critically flawed, lacking valid certificates and protocol support, which is a major technical risk. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a professional educational website but requires urgent security upgrades.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 78/100Low28 findingsView report
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