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Security report for hsbi.de

Hochschule Bielefeld · Education · Germany

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

Security score

67/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Hochschule Bielefeld (HSBI) is a German public university of applied sciences and arts offering a wide range of study programs, research initiatives, and transfer services. The website serves multiple audiences including students, prospective students, researchers, companies, alumni, and the press. It is well-structured with comprehensive content covering academic profiles, study offerings, research projects, and international cooperation. The institution positions itself as a regional leader in applied sciences with a focus on innovation and community engagement. Technically, the website uses a custom CMS with jQuery and standard web technologies, hosted likely within academic networks in Germany. The site is mobile-optimized, accessible, and SEO-friendly. Security posture is strong with HTTPS and multiple security headers, though it lacks visible cookie consent and explicit security policies. WHOIS data confirms domain legitimacy and consistency with the institution's identity. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and suitable for its educational mission.

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

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

    • 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"

  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

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

Keep watching hsbi.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.

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
72
Security headers
65
Email security
70
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
28
Average
67

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 hsbi.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
279
Employees
3
Customers
233
Third parties
43
Weak passwords
6%

Latest record dated 2026-06-14 · 12 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 hsbi.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –aep.hsbi.de2026-06-14
  • –smtp.hsbi.de2025-08-01
  • –imap.hsbi.de2025-07-31

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

HSBI operates in the education sector, focusing on applied sciences and arts. Its business model revolves around providing higher education, research, and knowledge transfer services. The institution targets students, academic staff, companies, and international partners. It maintains partnerships with regional and academic organizations, enhancing its research and transfer capabilities. The website reflects a stable medium-sized academic institution with a strong regional presence and growing international engagement. Revenue streams likely include public funding, tuition fees for continuing education, and research grants. The comprehensive navigation and content indicate a mature digital presence supporting its academic and community goals.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, presence of key security headers (HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options, etc.), and no visible exposure of sensitive data. Login portals appear secured, and no vulnerable or outdated libraries were detected in the scripts. However, the absence of a visible cookie consent mechanism and lack of published security policies or incident response contacts represent compliance gaps, especially under GDPR and NIS2 frameworks. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files were found, limiting transparency for security researchers. Overall, the site is secure but could improve transparency and user privacy controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement a visible cookie consent banner to comply with GDPR and enhance user privacy transparency.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and incident response procedures.
  3. Add a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Enhance contact information with dedicated security incident contacts (e.g., security@ or abuse@ email addresses).
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Hochschule Bielefeld
Description
Informationen zu Studium, Lehre, Forschung und Entwicklung an der Hochschule Bielefeld
Key services
Study programs, Research projects, Transfer and cooperation services, Continuing education, International office services
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery, CSS, JavaScript
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Security headers present
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No vulnerable libraries detected
  • Secure login forms

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a well-structured academic institution site.
  2. Content is comprehensive and professionally presented.
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity.
  4. No advertising or tracking detected.
  5. Good security posture with HTTPS and security headers.
  6. Lacks explicit cookie consent mechanism.
  7. No visible vulnerability disclosure or security policy pages.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a custom CMS platform with standard web technologies including jQuery, CSS, and JavaScript. It uses responsive design techniques for mobile optimization and includes accessibility features. Hosting appears to be managed within academic or research networks in Germany, indicated by nameservers and domain registration data. Performance is moderate with image optimization and slider functionality. SEO is supported by meta tags and structured navigation. There is no evidence of modern JavaScript frameworks or advanced backend technologies from the HTML source. The technical stack is stable but could benefit from modernization and enhanced analytics integration.
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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