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Security report for hhu.de

Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf · Education · Germany

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

58/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (HHU) is a prominent public university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, founded in 1965. The website serves as a comprehensive portal for students, faculty, staff, and the public, offering detailed information about academic programs, research centers, university governance, and services. The site targets a broad audience including prospective and current students, researchers, and administrative personnel. HHU positions itself as a key educational and research institution with a strong regional and national presence. Technically, the website is built on the TYPO3 CMS platform, leveraging modern web technologies such as Bootstrap for responsive design, jQuery for interactivity, and FontAwesome for icons. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with good SEO practices and a moderate performance profile. Analytics are handled via Matomo, indicating a privacy-conscious approach to user tracking. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and shows evidence of organizational security roles such as an Information Security Officer. However, explicit security headers are not detected, and there is no public vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file. Privacy policies are comprehensive and GDPR compliant, though a cookie consent mechanism is not clearly visible. Overall, the security posture is solid but could be enhanced with additional headers and transparency. The domain WHOIS data aligns well with the university's identity and history, supporting the legitimacy of the site. No suspicious patterns or privacy protections obscure ownership details. The site is trustworthy, professionally maintained, and free from adult or questionable content, making it safe for general audiences.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
28/ 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

7 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

  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 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 hhu.de

This scan found 28 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

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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
62
Security headers
25
Email security
60
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
28
Average
58

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 hhu.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
4,862
Employees
39
Customers
4,254
Third parties
569
Weak passwords
11%

Latest record dated 2026-06-15 · 120 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 hhu.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –hhu.de2026-06-15
  • –www2.hhu.de2026-06-08
  • –hhu.de2026-06-01
  • –exchange.hhu.de2026-06-01
  • –master-biologie.hhu.de2026-05-28

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

HHU operates as a large public educational institution with a focus on higher education and research. Its business model is non-commercial, funded primarily by government sources and tuition fees. The university's competitive advantage lies in its comprehensive academic offerings, research excellence, and strong regional ties. The website reflects a mature digital presence with extensive organizational transparency and service offerings. Partnerships with research clusters and external entities like CEPLAS and Stellenwerk Düsseldorf enhance its ecosystem. Growth indicators include active event management, extensive academic programs, and digital services for students and staff. The university maintains a strong brand identity and trust through official channels and social media engagement.

Security posture

The security maturity of the HHU website is moderate to high. HTTPS is enforced, ensuring encrypted communications. The presence of an Information Security Officer and dedicated pages for information security and data protection indicate organizational commitment to security and compliance. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options suggests room for improvement. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. The lack of a public vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file limits transparency for security researchers. Incident response contact channels are not explicitly provided. Overall, the site demonstrates good baseline security practices but could enhance its posture with additional technical controls and disclosure mechanisms.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure.
  2. Add and enforce security headers including CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Deploy a visible cookie consent banner to comply fully with GDPR cookie requirements.
  4. Provide explicit incident response contact information for security issues.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Description
Die Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf ist eine der jüngeren Hochschulen des Landes NRW – gegründet 1965. Seit 1988 trägt die Universität den Namen des großen Sohnes der Stadt.
Key services
Studium und Lehre, Forschung, Weiterbildung, Service-Center, Veranstaltungen
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
TYPO3 CMS, jQuery, Bootstrap, FontAwesome, Matomo Analytics
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security-related roles (Informationssicherheitsbeauftragter)

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a comprehensive official university portal.
  2. Content is primarily in German with English alternate language support.
  3. Strong organizational structure with detailed navigation.
  4. Social media presence on major platforms.
  5. Use of open source CMS TYPO3 and modern web technologies.
  6. No signs of malicious or suspicious content.
  7. Privacy and security policies are present and accessible.
  8. No visible cookie consent banner detected.
  9. No explicit vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses TYPO3 CMS, a robust open-source content management system popular in German public sector and education. It employs Bootstrap for responsive design and jQuery for client-side scripting. FontAwesome icons are used for UI consistency. The site loads multiple CSS and JS assets locally, indicating controlled hosting likely managed by the university or DFN (German Research Network). Matomo analytics is used, reflecting a privacy-conscious analytics approach. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with semantic HTML and ARIA roles for navigation. Performance is moderate, with room for optimization in asset delivery and caching. No major technical debt or deprecated technologies were detected. The infrastructure appears stable and professionally maintained.
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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