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Security report for hochschulkompass.de

Stiftung zur Förderung der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) · Education · Germany

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Hochschulkompass website is an authoritative and comprehensive platform operated by the Stiftung zur Förderung der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK), providing up-to-date information on studying and pursuing doctoral degrees in Germany. It serves as a key resource for prospective students and researchers, offering detailed search tools for study programs, universities, and doctoral opportunities. The platform also includes a study interest test and a study place exchange service, enhancing user engagement and support. The website's content is well-structured, professionally presented, and clearly targeted at students and academic audiences in Germany and internationally. Technically, the site is built on TYPO3 CMS with modern frontend technologies such as jQuery and Bootstrap, ensuring a responsive and accessible user experience. The presence of cookie consent mechanisms and a comprehensive privacy policy demonstrates good compliance with GDPR requirements. While the site uses HTTPS and secure login forms, it lacks explicit published security policies and incident response contacts, which could be improved to enhance transparency and trust. Security posture is strong with no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. The WHOIS data aligns with the website's claims, showing consistent domain registration and professional DNS management. External links to partner domains and social media are legitimate and relevant. Overall, the site is trustworthy, well-maintained, and serves its educational mission effectively.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
55/ 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. 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

  3. 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
    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching hochschulkompass.de

This scan found 24 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
42
Security headers
70
Email security
60
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
55
Average
65

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 hochschulkompass.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
1,623
Employees
0
Customers
1,623
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
5%

4 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 hochschulkompass.de.

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

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Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

Hochschulkompass holds a strong market position as the official information portal for higher education in Germany, backed by the HRK. Its business model focuses on providing authoritative, updated educational content and services to students and academic stakeholders. The platform's partnerships with other educational and research-related sites expand its ecosystem and user reach. The inclusion of interactive tools like the SIT test and study place exchange indicates a user-centric approach. The site targets a broad audience including prospective students, current students, and academic researchers, positioning itself as a central hub for academic information in Germany.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and secure form handling. Cookie consent and privacy policies are comprehensive and GDPR compliant, reflecting strong data protection practices. However, the absence of a publicly available security policy, incident response contacts, or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms represents a gap in transparency and readiness. No security headers were detected in the HTML content, suggesting room for improvement in defense-in-depth strategies. Overall, the site is secure but could benefit from enhanced security communication and policies.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and commitments.
  2. Provide clear incident response contact information, such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  3. Implement and configure security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  4. Establish and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  5. Include data protection officer contact details to improve GDPR transparency and user trust.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Stiftung zur Förderung der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK)
Description
Informationen über deutsche Hochschulen, Studiengänge, Promotionen. Tagesaktuelle und umfassende Daten direkt von den Hochschulen.
Key services
Study program search, University search, PhD program search, Study interest test (SIT), Study place exchange (Studienplatzbörse)
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
TYPO3 CMS, jQuery, Bootstrap, JavaScript, CSS
Frameworks
TYPO3 CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure login forms with hidden fields
  • Cookie consent with detailed information
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

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 information portal for studying and researching in Germany.
  2. Content is well-structured, multilingual (German and English), and professionally maintained.
  3. Strong affiliation with Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) adds trust.
  4. Cookie consent and privacy policies are clearly presented and GDPR compliant.
  5. No visible security policy or incident response contact details on the site.
  6. No signs of malicious or suspicious content or domains.
  7. Use of TYPO3 CMS and modern frontend libraries indicates a mature technical stack.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses TYPO3 CMS, a robust and widely used content management system, combined with jQuery and Bootstrap for frontend responsiveness and interactivity. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with good SEO practices evident from meta tags and structured navigation. Performance is moderate, likely due to the use of multiple CSS and JS assets, but overall user experience is smooth. There is no indication of outdated or vulnerable libraries in the provided content. Hosting details are not explicit, but DNS configuration appears professional. Opportunities exist to optimize performance further and enhance security headers for improved protection.
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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