Skip to main content

Security report for northeastern.edu

Northeastern University · Education · United States

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

90/100

Risk levelLow

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

Northeastern University is a well-established global research and experiential learning institution founded in 1898, serving a broad academic audience including students and researchers. The website reflects a mature digital presence with modern technologies such as React and WordPress CMS, enhanced by SEO tools like Yoast SEO Premium and analytics via Google Analytics. The site is professionally designed, mobile-optimized, and accessible, providing a high-quality user experience. Security posture is good with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities, though security headers and explicit privacy policies are absent in the provided content. WHOIS data for the subdomain 'www.northeastern.edu' was not found, which is likely due to querying a subdomain rather than the root domain, but this limits domain registration trust analysis. Overall, the site is credible and trustworthy, representing a major educational institution with strong branding and social media presence.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
85/ 100 · Low
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

2 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 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 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 northeastern.edu

This scan found 9 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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. See sample alerts.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
100
Security headers
80
Email security
88
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
85
Average
90

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 northeastern.edu, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
21,402
Employees
543
Customers
6,223
Third parties
14,636
Weak passwords
7%

Latest record dated 2026-06-17 · 70 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 northeastern.edu.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –papercut.northeastern.edu2026-06-17
  • –papercut.northeastern.edu2026-06-17
  • –papercut.northeastern.edu2026-06-17
  • –papercut.northeastern.edu2026-06-15
  • –sts.northeastern.edu2026-06-15

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

Northeastern University operates in the education sector as a large, essential entity with a focus on research and experiential learning. Its market position is strong, supported by a long history and global engagement. The business model centers on higher education services, research initiatives, and global partnerships. The website targets prospective and current students, faculty, and academic collaborators. The digital ecosystem includes official social media channels and uses advanced SEO and analytics tools, indicating a strategic approach to outreach and engagement. No direct business partners or subsidiaries were identified from the provided data.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a good security posture with HTTPS enabled and no exposed sensitive data in the HTML. However, the absence of security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HSTS, and X-Frame-Options reduces the overall security score. No vulnerability disclosure or incident response information is published, which is a gap in security transparency. The lack of privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanisms also indicates partial compliance with privacy regulations. The site uses modern JavaScript libraries and frameworks, which should be regularly audited for vulnerabilities. Overall, the security maturity is moderate with room for improvement in policy publication and header implementation.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including CSP, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Publish clear and accessible privacy and cookie policies with user consent mechanisms to improve GDPR and privacy compliance.
  3. Establish and publicize a vulnerability disclosure policy and security.txt file to facilitate responsible security reporting.
  4. Enhance visibility of contact information specifically for security and privacy concerns to build trust and facilitate incident response.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and frameworks to mitigate risks from known vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Northeastern University
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Northeastern University
Description
Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global, experiential, research university built on a tradition of engagement with the world.
Key services
Higher education programs, Research initiatives, Experiential learning, Global engagement
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
React, Yoast SEO Premium, Google Analytics, Font Awesome, WordPress
Frameworks
React, WordPress
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of modern JS libraries

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally designed university homepage with rich content and structured data.
  2. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet.
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided content.
  4. Strong social media presence with official accounts linked.
  5. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  6. No forms detected in the provided HTML snippet.
  7. Use of modern web technologies and SEO best practices.
  8. WHOIS data query was performed on 'www.northeastern.edu' which is a subdomain and returned no data; this is a limitation in WHOIS extraction.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with React components, leveraging Yoast SEO Premium for search optimization and Google Analytics for user tracking. The use of Font Awesome provides rich iconography. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with good SEO metadata and structured data (JSON-LD) describing the organization and webpage. Performance is moderate, likely influenced by the use of multiple external scripts and fonts. No hosting provider information was detected from the HTML content. The technical infrastructure is modern but could benefit from enhanced security configurations and performance tuning.
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

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with northeastern.edu. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review northeastern.edu.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.