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Security report for msstate.edu

Mississippi State University · Education · United States

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Mississippi State University operates a comprehensive and professionally designed website that serves a broad audience including prospective and current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors. The institution is positioned as a large, well-established public research university in the United States, offering extensive academic programs, research initiatives, and community engagement. The website leverages a modern technology stack centered on Drupal 8, enhanced with multiple analytics and marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Facebook Pixel, and Marketo. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and reputable third-party scripts, though some security headers and policies could be improved. Privacy compliance is partially addressed with a clear privacy policy but lacks a cookie consent mechanism. WHOIS data is incomplete, likely due to querying the subdomain rather than the root domain, but the website's branding and content strongly support legitimacy. Overall, the site demonstrates high professionalism, trustworthiness, and technical maturity.

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

7 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 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

    • 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

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

Keep watching msstate.edu

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.

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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
40
Email security
60
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
65

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 website reflects a robust business model focused on education and research services, targeting students at various levels, faculty, and the wider community. The presence of multiple official subdomains and partner sites indicates a well-integrated digital ecosystem. The use of extensive marketing and analytics tools suggests active engagement in recruitment and outreach efforts. The site’s content quality and navigation support a positive user experience, reinforcing the university's market position as a leading educational institution in Mississippi. The lack of visible security policies and incomplete WHOIS data are minor concerns but do not detract significantly from overall credibility.

Security posture

The website maintains a good security posture with HTTPS and reputable security-related scripts. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options is a gap. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The lack of a published security policy or incident response page limits transparency. Privacy compliance is partial, with no cookie consent mechanism detected, which could be improved to meet GDPR and other regulations fully. Overall, the security maturity is good but could benefit from enhanced header policies and published security documentation.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options headers to strengthen security.
  2. Add a cookie consent banner or mechanism to improve privacy compliance and user transparency.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to enhance trust and preparedness.
  4. Investigate and resolve WHOIS data inconsistencies by verifying domain registration details for msstate.edu.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking tools to ensure compliance with privacy regulations and minimize user tracking.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Mississippi State University
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Mississippi State University
Description
At Mississippi State University, we are a world-class research institution. We think inclusively and beyond the boundaries to encourage boldness, imagination and creativity, and enable our students to discover solutions to problems that face our world.
Key services
Undergraduate education, Graduate education, Research programs, Online education, Campus events and outreach
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 8, jQuery, Bootstrap 5, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Facebook Pixel, Twitter Universal Website Tag, Marketo Munchkin, YouTube iframe API, Fancybox, YTPlayer, Popper.js
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security and analytics scripts from reputable sources

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Facebook Pixel, Twitter Universal Website Tag, Marketo Munchkin
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Bing Ads, Twitter Ads, Facebook Ads
Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, Twitter Universal Website Tag, Microsoft Clarity, Marketo Munchkin, Snapchat Pixel
Marketing tools
Marketo, BlueConic
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 and multimedia
  2. Strong branding consistent with Mississippi State University
  3. Multiple official social media and partner links present
  4. Use of modern web technologies and analytics tools
  5. No evidence of adult or questionable content
  6. No visible security policy or incident response page
  7. No cookie consent mechanism detected
  8. WHOIS data unavailable or not found for queried domain
  9. HTTPS is enforced with multiple security-related scripts
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 8 CMS, utilizing modern front-end frameworks like Bootstrap 5 and jQuery. It integrates multiple third-party analytics and marketing tools, including Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Facebook Pixel, Twitter tags, and Marketo Munchkin. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features. Performance is moderate, with lazy loading of images and asynchronous script loading. The technical infrastructure is mature and well-maintained, though opportunities exist to enhance security headers and privacy mechanisms. Hosting details are not explicitly identified but appear stable and reliable.
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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