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Security report for jku.at

Johannes Kepler Universität Linz · Education · Austria

High risk. 8 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

44/100

Risk levelHigh

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

Johannes Kepler Universität Linz operates as a large public university in Austria, offering a wide range of academic programs including Bachelor, Master, Diplom, and doctoral studies. The institution serves students, researchers, and alumni with comprehensive educational and research services, supported by a well-structured and professionally designed website. The university maintains a strong market position as the largest university in Upper Austria with extensive campus services and international programs. Technically, the website is built on TYPO3 CMS with modern JavaScript libraries and integrates analytics and marketing tools such as Google Tag Manager and Matomo. However, the absence of a valid SSL/TLS certificate is a critical security gap, exposing users to risks and lowering the overall security posture. Privacy and cookie policies are well implemented with explicit consent mechanisms, reflecting good GDPR compliance. Overall, the website is trustworthy and professional but requires urgent security improvements to enable HTTPS and strengthen its security framework.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
0/ 100 · Critical
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. 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

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

  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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. 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"

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

Keep watching jku.at

This scan found 18 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
0
Security headers
25
Email security
50
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
0
Average
44

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

The university's business model focuses on public higher education and research, targeting students, academic staff, and international partners. It leverages partnerships such as the EC2U alliance and maintains a career center and student union services to support its community. The website content and navigation are comprehensive and user-friendly, supporting recruitment, student services, and research dissemination. The presence of certifications and trust signals enhances credibility. The university's digital presence is mature but could benefit from improved security infrastructure to protect its users and data.

Security posture

The current security posture is weak due to the lack of HTTPS and SSL/TLS encryption, which is a critical vulnerability. While some security headers are present, important protections like HSTS, OCSP stapling, and secure session management are missing. No incident response or security policy information is publicly available, indicating potential gaps in security governance. The extensive use of third-party analytics and marketing tools is disclosed with cookie consent, but the absence of encryption undermines user data protection. Immediate remediation is recommended to implement HTTPS and enhance security headers to protect user privacy and data integrity.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload directives.
  3. Enable OCSP stapling to improve certificate revocation checking performance and security.
  4. Add additional security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Referrer-Policy.
  5. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and readiness.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a robust CMS platform (TYPO3) with modern JavaScript libraries including Swiper.js for UI components and MathJax for math rendering. It integrates Google Tag Manager and Matomo for analytics and tracking, with a detailed cookie consent mechanism. The site is well structured with responsive design and accessibility features. However, the lack of HTTPS is a major technical deficiency. Performance metrics were not provided, but the use of preloading and preconnect hints suggests some optimization efforts. Hosting appears to be managed internally or regionally, with DNS records consistent with the university's domain. Overall, the technical infrastructure is solid but requires urgent security upgrades.
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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