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Security report for mahacet.org

State Common Entrance Test Cell · Education · India

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The State Common Entrance Test Cell website serves as the official portal for the Government of Maharashtra's CET Cell, responsible for conducting entrance examinations and managing admissions for professional courses in the state. It provides comprehensive information and resources for candidates, educational institutions, and stakeholders, including notices, admission schedules, and government resolutions. The site is well-branded with government logos and seals, reinforcing its official status. Technically, the website is built on WordPress using Elementor and several addons, leveraging Bootstrap for responsive design. It employs modern web technologies and integrates Google Tag Manager for analytics. The site is mobile-optimized and offers a good user experience with clear navigation and relevant content. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS with good SSL configuration but lacks some advanced security headers and does not publish a security.txt or incident response information. The absence of privacy and cookie policies is a notable compliance gap. WHOIS data is unavailable, which slightly impacts trust but the official government branding and content mitigate this concern. Overall, the website is a credible and functional government portal with room for improvement in privacy compliance and security best practices. Strategic enhancements in these areas would strengthen trust and regulatory adherence.

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

9 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 mahacet.org

This scan found 23 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
65
Security headers
15
Email security
85
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
61

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 mahacet.org, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
146,377
Employees
0
Customers
146,329
Third parties
48
Weak passwords
12%

951 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 mahacet.org.

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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

The CET Cell operates as a government regulatory and administrative body facilitating entrance exams and admissions for professional education in Maharashtra. Its market position is strong as the official authority for CETs, serving a large target audience of students and educational institutions. The business model is service-oriented, focusing on examination management and information dissemination. The portal links to several partner government domains, indicating a well-integrated ecosystem. Growth indicators include active updates and multiple admission cycles. The absence of commercial advertising and the presence of government seals reinforce its non-commercial, public service nature.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and no visible sensitive data exposure. However, it lacks comprehensive security headers and does not provide a security.txt or incident response contact, which are best practices for transparency and vulnerability management. The use of multiple third-party plugins necessitates regular security audits to mitigate risks. Privacy compliance is weak due to missing policies and consent mechanisms. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a government informational site but could be enhanced to meet higher standards and regulatory requirements.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism to improve compliance.
  2. Implement and publicly disclose a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability reporting.
  3. Add essential security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party plugins to reduce vulnerability risks.
  5. Provide clear contact information for incident response and data protection officer.

Contact details published on the site

Registration number
Registration Notice
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
State Common Entrance Test Cell
Description
The Government of Maharashtra has established State Common Entrance Test Cell as per Section 10 of the Maharashtra Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admissions and Fees) Act ,2015. The CET Cell conducts various entrance exams for Admission to Professional courses in the state of Maharashtra, India. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the admission process for Professional courses such as Engineering, Management, Pharmacy, Agriculture, law, Medical, AYUSH & Fine Arts.
Key services
Conducting entrance exams (CETs), Admission process management, Information dissemination, Candidate help and instructions, Publishing notices, timetables, and government resolutions
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Elementor, Bootstrap 5, jQuery, Font Awesome, Google Tag Manager, Essential Addons for Elementor, Piotnet Addons for Elementor, Elementskit Lite, BDThemes Element Pack Lite, Litespeed Cache
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google Tag Manager for analytics

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager, Cloudflare Insights
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Cloudflare Insights
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official government education portal for Maharashtra state CET Cell
  2. Content is rich with notices, admission info, and candidate resources
  3. No privacy or cookie policy pages detected
  4. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found in HTML
  5. Uses WordPress CMS with Elementor and multiple addons
  6. No visible security.txt or incident response info
  7. HTTPS enabled with good SSL configuration
  8. No WAF or blocking detected
  9. Social media presence on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (X)
  10. Multiple external government-related domains linked
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern WordPress CMS with Elementor page builder and multiple addons, including Bootstrap 5 for responsive design. It integrates Google Tag Manager and Cloudflare Insights for analytics and performance monitoring. The site loads multiple CSS and JS assets asynchronously and uses font libraries like Font Awesome. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and accessibility features, though accessibility could be improved. The technical stack is standard for government portals, balancing functionality and ease of content management. Opportunities exist to optimize loading times and enhance security configurations.
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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