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Security report for iep-qaa.org

Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) · Education · Switzerland

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

54/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) is a specialized quality assurance agency operating under the European University Association (EUA), focused on supporting higher education institutions worldwide in strategic leadership and quality management. The website presents a professional and consistent brand image, targeting universities and quality assurance bodies with services including institutional evaluations and capacity building. The domain is well-established since 2017 and hosted by a reputable registrar, reflecting a credible business presence. Technically, the website employs a modern technology stack including Joomla CMS, jQuery, Bootstrap, Google Analytics, and HubSpot for marketing and analytics. The site is mobile-optimized with good SEO practices and moderate performance. Security is well-managed with HTTPS and no evident vulnerabilities, though some security headers could be improved for enhanced protection. Privacy compliance is robust with clear cookie consent mechanisms, privacy policy, and terms of use pages. Contact information is transparent and includes physical address, phone, email, and social media links, enhancing trustworthiness. No adult or questionable content is present, making the site safe for general audiences. Overall, the website demonstrates a strong security posture, good technical implementation, and clear business credibility. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, continuous monitoring of third-party scripts, and improving accessibility features to meet broader compliance standards.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
83/ 100 · Low
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

4 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
    • 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';…

  2. 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

  3. Network security

    Services reachable from the internet are the first thing attackers probe. Anything open that does not need to be should be closed.

    • High

      High-Risk Service Exposed: FTP

      Port 21 (FTP) is publicly accessible - FTP - Often unencrypted file transfer

      What to do: Consider restricting access to FTP or implementing strong authentication

      • NIS2 21(2)(e)
      • IR 2024/2690 6.7.2(f): Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 6.7.2(f): Network security
      • NIST CM-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-7: Least Functionality
      • NIST SC-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-7: Boundary Protection

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

Keep watching iep-qaa.org

This scan found 27 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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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Full report

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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
40
Email security
55
DNS health
65
Network security
20
GDPR outside view
83
Average
54

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

IEP holds a strong position in the higher education quality assurance sector, leveraging its affiliation with EUA and membership in EQAR and ENQA to establish trust and authority. Its business model revolves around providing institutional evaluations and quality assurance services globally, with over 460 evaluations conducted. The target customers are universities and higher education institutions seeking strategic development and accreditation support. The website content and testimonials indicate a focus on European and global markets, with a small organizational size but significant influence in its niche. The partnership ecosystem includes recognized European quality assurance bodies, enhancing its market credibility.

Security posture

The website maintains a good security posture with enforced HTTPS, absence of exposed sensitive data, and secure cookie consent implementation. However, explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options are not detected and should be implemented to mitigate risks like clickjacking and MIME sniffing. The use of third-party scripts like Google Analytics and HubSpot is standard but requires regular security audits to prevent vulnerabilities. No immediate vulnerabilities or malware indicators are found. Incident response and security policy documents are not publicly available, which could be improved to enhance transparency and readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Conduct regular security audits of third-party scripts and libraries to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities.
  3. Develop and publish a formal security policy and incident response plan accessible to users.
  4. Enhance website accessibility features to comply with WCAG standards for broader user inclusivity.
  5. Maintain and update privacy and cookie policies regularly to reflect evolving regulations and practices.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP)
Description
IEP supports institutions in developing their strategic leadership and capacity to manage change.
Key services
Institutional evaluations, Quality assurance assessments, Strategic leadership development
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery, Bootstrap, Google Analytics, HubSpot, jVectorMap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of secure cookies consent mechanism

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, HubSpot Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
HubSpot
Marketing tools
HubSpot
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is focused on higher education quality assurance and institutional evaluation.
  3. Use of modern web technologies and analytics tools.
  4. Clear contact information and business legitimacy indicators.
  5. Cookie consent mechanism implemented with clear messaging.
  6. No signs of adult or questionable content.
  7. WHOIS data supports legitimacy and domain age is appropriate.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Joomla CMS with a combination of jQuery, Bootstrap, and jVectorMap for interactive features. It integrates Google Analytics and HubSpot for analytics and marketing automation. The site is hosted via Ascio Technologies, a reputable registrar and hosting provider. Performance is moderate with room for optimization, especially in script loading and caching. The site is mobile responsive and uses Google Fonts for typography. SEO is supported by meta tags and structured navigation. No major technical debt is evident, but improvements in security headers and accessibility would enhance the technical maturity.
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. 54/100Medium36 findingsView report
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