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Security report for incommon.org

InCommon · Education · United States

Medium risk. 8 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

52/100

Risk levelMedium

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

InCommon is a well-established organization founded in 2000, providing integrated identity and access management (IAM) services primarily for the education and research sectors. Their offerings include single sign-on, cloud access, federation services, eduroam wireless access, certificate services, and trusted access software solutions. The website reflects a strong community-driven approach, targeting students, faculty, staff, and researchers globally. The organization maintains a reputable market position as a leader in IAM for research and education communities. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with a modern tech stack including jQuery, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Cloudflare DNS/CDN services. The site is well-optimized for SEO, mobile-friendly, and accessible, with excellent design quality and user experience. However, there is room for improvement in security headers and cookie consent mechanisms to enhance privacy compliance. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS with good SSL configuration and employs Google reCAPTCHA v3 for form protection. DNSSEC is not enabled, and no explicit security headers were detected, which are areas for enhancement. The WHOIS data shows privacy protection typical for this sector, with a domain age consistent with the organization's history, supporting legitimacy. Overall, InCommon demonstrates a strong digital presence with professional content and solid security posture, though improvements in privacy compliance and DNS security would further strengthen their risk profile and trustworthiness.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 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

8 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 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';…

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • High

      No Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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

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

Keep watching incommon.org

This scan found 22 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
100
Security headers
15
Email security
60
DNS health
80
Network security
20
GDPR outside view
35
Average
52

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

InCommon operates in the education and technology sectors, focusing on IAM solutions tailored for research and academic institutions. Their business model is community-driven, offering software, services, and training to a broad audience of educational stakeholders. The organization benefits from a collaborative ecosystem, including partnerships with Internet2 and a strong community presence. Revenue streams likely include membership fees, certificate services, and training programs. The company shows growth indicators through recent reports and active news updates. Their strategic positioning as a trusted IAM provider in education gives them competitive advantages in a niche market with high trust requirements.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS and use of reCAPTCHA to mitigate automated abuse. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents gaps that could expose the site to certain attack vectors. No incident response contacts or vulnerability disclosure policies are publicly available, which could hinder rapid response to security events. Privacy compliance is partially addressed with a comprehensive privacy policy but lacks explicit cookie consent mechanisms. Overall, the security culture appears solid but could benefit from formalized incident response and enhanced technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to protect against DNS spoofing and improve overall DNS security.
  2. Implement standard security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to mitigate common web vulnerabilities.
  3. Add a visible cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply fully with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  4. Publish an incident response contact or security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability reporting and improve transparency.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking tools to minimize privacy risks and enhance user trust.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
InCommon
Description
InCommon provides integrated single sign-on, cloud access, and global collaboration for students, faculty, staff, and researchers.
Key services
Single sign-on (SSO), Access to cloud and local services, Global collaboration, Federation, eduroam wireless access, Certificate services, Trusted Access Platform, Software training and community support
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.6.0, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Yoast SEO Premium, Cloudflare DNS, Google Fonts, Google reCAPTCHA v3, Pardot marketing scripts, Gravity Forms
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA v3 for forms
  • Client-side security via Cloudflare DNS
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Pardot
Marketing tools
Pardot
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and professional design.
  2. Strong focus on identity and access management for education and research.
  3. Use of modern web technologies and SEO best practices.
  4. No explicit privacy or cookie consent banner detected, which could be improved.
  5. No visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure page.
  6. WHOIS privacy protection is used but justified and common for this sector.
  7. No suspicious or malicious content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is hosted behind Cloudflare DNS and CDN services, leveraging WordPress CMS with a modern front-end stack including jQuery and Google Fonts. SEO is enhanced by Yoast SEO Premium plugin with structured data and Open Graph tags implemented. Performance is moderate with multiple external resources loaded asynchronously. Accessibility and mobile optimization are good, supporting a wide user base. The site uses Google reCAPTCHA v3 for bot mitigation and Pardot for marketing automation. Technical debt appears low, but improvements in security headers and DNS configuration are recommended to reduce risk exposure.
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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