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Security report for mayo.edu

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research · Healthcare · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Mayo Clinic is a globally recognized non-profit healthcare organization specializing in patient care, medical research, and education. The website focuses on education and research opportunities, highlighting Mayo Clinic's integrated approach to improving patient outcomes through academic and scientific collaboration. The institution serves a broad audience including patients, medical professionals, students, and researchers, positioning itself as a leader in healthcare innovation and education. Technically, the website employs modern JavaScript libraries, tag management, and performance monitoring tools, hosted likely on Akamai's infrastructure, ensuring fast load times and good mobile responsiveness. Accessibility and SEO best practices are well implemented, contributing to an excellent user experience. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, uses secure form handling, and integrates consent management for privacy compliance. While explicit security headers are not fully confirmed, the overall posture is strong with no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. The absence of WHOIS data is noted but likely due to .edu domain registration policies rather than malicious intent. Overall, the website demonstrates a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy regulations, making it a reliable resource for its users.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
73/ 100 · Medium
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

6 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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
    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

  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 mayo.edu

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.

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
37
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
73
Average
63

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

Mayo Clinic operates as a large enterprise in the healthcare sector with significant emphasis on education and research. Its business model integrates patient care with academic and scientific research, supported by a strong brand and global reputation. The website reflects a mature digital presence with extensive content targeting multiple stakeholder groups. Revenue streams likely include patient services, research grants, educational programs, and philanthropic donations. The organization maintains partnerships and subsidiary domains related to labs, job portals, and donation platforms, reinforcing its ecosystem. Strategic observations include a focus on innovation, community engagement, and maintaining high standards of care and education.

Security posture

The security maturity level of the Mayo Clinic website is high, with enforced HTTPS, secure form handling, and privacy compliance mechanisms such as cookie consent management. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive information were detected. However, explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not prominently published, representing an area for improvement. The use of multiple third-party scripts necessitates ongoing monitoring to mitigate supply chain risks. Compliance with GDPR and other privacy regulations is evident through comprehensive privacy policies and consent frameworks. Overall, the security culture appears robust but could benefit from enhanced transparency and vulnerability disclosure practices.

Recommendations

  1. Publish explicit security headers such as X-Frame-Options and X-Content-Type-Options to enhance protection against clickjacking and MIME sniffing.
  2. Establish and publicize a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  3. Enhance visibility of incident response contacts to improve communication channels for security events.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts to reduce risks from supply chain vulnerabilities.
  5. Continue to monitor and update privacy compliance measures in line with evolving regulations such as GDPR and NIS2.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
Description
Mayo Clinic provides education and research opportunities and resources where academic leaders, faculty members, and scientists work together to improve patient care.
Key services
Patient care, Medical research, Medical education, Clinical trials, Continuing professional development
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, jQuery UI Autocomplete, Owl Carousel, Tealium Tag Management, Boomerang RUM, Transcend Consent Manager
Performance
fast
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure form with ASP.NET viewstate and event validation tokens
  • Consent management for cookies
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Boomerang Real User Monitoring, Tealium
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Tealium, Boomerang, Kameleoon
Marketing tools
Tealium Tag Manager, Kameleoon A/B Testing
Transparency
good

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 focused on education and research at Mayo Clinic.
  2. Strong branding consistency with Mayo Clinic official logos and trademarks.
  3. Comprehensive navigation structure targeting patients, professionals, researchers, and students.
  4. Robust privacy and cookie policies with consent management implemented.
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on this page; likely located on other Mayo Clinic pages.
  6. Use of multiple third-party scripts for analytics and tag management.
  7. No signs of adult or questionable content.
  8. WHOIS data unavailable, possibly due to .edu domain registration restrictions.
Technical notes

Notes

The website leverages a modern technology stack including JavaScript libraries like jQuery UI and Owl Carousel, tag management via Tealium, and real user monitoring through Boomerang. Hosting appears to be on a high-performance CDN, likely Akamai, ensuring fast load times and global availability. The site is mobile optimized with good accessibility features and SEO practices. Technical debt is minimal with no broken elements detected. Opportunities exist to further modernize by adopting newer frameworks or enhancing security header implementations. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a high-quality user experience aligned with Mayo Clinic's brand and mission.
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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