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Security report for mit.edu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology · Education · United States

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

72/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a globally recognized educational and research institution focused on advancing knowledge in science, technology, and related fields. The website serves a diverse audience including prospective and current students, faculty, researchers, alumni, and the general public. It offers comprehensive information on education, research, innovation, admissions, campus life, and alumni engagement. The site is well-branded, professionally designed, and provides rich content aligned with MIT's mission. Technically, the website is built on Drupal CMS and leverages modern web technologies including SVG graphics, asynchronous JavaScript loading, and integration with Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel for analytics and marketing. The site is mobile-optimized, accessible, and performs well with fast loading times. Security best practices are observed with HTTPS enforcement, security headers, and anonymized IP tracking. From a security perspective, the site demonstrates a strong posture with no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. However, there is room for improvement in privacy compliance, particularly in implementing explicit cookie consent mechanisms and publishing a public security policy or incident response contact. The absence of WHOIS data is noted but likely due to registrar privacy policies rather than malicious intent. Overall, MIT's website is a high-quality, trustworthy digital presence that effectively supports its educational and research mission. Strategic recommendations include enhancing privacy compliance, publishing security policies, and maintaining vigilance on third-party scripts to sustain security and trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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

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

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

    • 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. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

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

Keep watching mit.edu

This scan found 21 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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Recommended

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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
90
Security headers
45
Email security
65
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
72

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 mit.edu, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
1,237,422
Employees
560
Customers
1,228,657
Third parties
8,205
Weak passwords
24%

Latest record dated 2026-06-18 · 1,655 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 mit.edu.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –gradapply.mit.edu2026-06-18
  • –engage.mit.edu2026-06-17
  • –oeopconnect.mit.edu2026-06-17
  • –media.mit.edu2026-06-13
  • –alumsso.mit.edu2026-06-13

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Open in Breach(opens in a new tab)Monitor on Breach(opens in a new tab)

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

MIT holds a top-tier position in global education and research markets, leveraging its strong brand and innovation leadership. Its business model centers on education, research funding, and innovation partnerships. The website supports multiple stakeholder groups with tailored content and services. MIT's extensive partnership ecosystem includes affiliated research labs and social media hubs. Growth indicators include ongoing research breakthroughs and strong ROI for students. The institution's operations are transparent and professionally managed, reinforcing its market leadership and credibility.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS, security headers, and anonymized analytics tracking. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. However, the lack of a public security policy, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms indicates areas for maturity improvement. GDPR compliance is partially addressed but could be enhanced with explicit cookie consent. Overall, the security culture appears strong but would benefit from formalized transparency and incident readiness documentation.

Recommendations

  1. Implement an explicit cookie consent banner to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Publish a comprehensive security policy and incident response contact information on the website.
  3. Create and maintain a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file.
  4. Provide clear contact details for a Data Protection Officer or privacy contact.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and tracking technologies to mitigate security risks.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Description
MIT advances knowledge and educates students in science, technology, and other scholarship areas to serve the nation and world in the 21st century.
Key services
Education, Research, Innovation, Admissions and financial aid, Campus life, Alumni relations, Lifelong learning
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal CMS, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, SVG graphics, JavaScript ES6+, Modernizr
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • IP anonymization in Google Analytics
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security headers

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel
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 navigation.
  2. Strong branding consistent with Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  3. Use of modern web technologies and security best practices.
  4. No signs of phishing, malware, or suspicious behavior.
  5. WHOIS data unavailable, but website legitimacy is high based on content and external references.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by Drupal CMS, utilizing modern JavaScript frameworks and SVG for graphics. It integrates Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Facebook Pixel for analytics and marketing. The site is mobile-responsive, accessible, and optimized for performance with asynchronous script loading. Security headers and HTTPS are properly configured. There is no evidence of outdated or vulnerable libraries. Hosting details are not explicitly identified but the infrastructure supports fast and reliable delivery. Opportunities exist to enhance privacy compliance and formalize security documentation.
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. 72/100 +4Medium29 findingsView report
  2. 68/100Medium25 findingsView report
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