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Security report for openedmb.ca

Open Education Manitoba · Education · Canada

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Open Education Manitoba is a non-profit initiative dedicated to increasing accessibility to post-secondary education in Manitoba through the promotion and support of Open Educational Resources (OERs). The organization provides resources and guidance for faculty and students to adopt, adapt, review, and create open textbooks under Creative Commons licensing, thereby reducing educational costs and expanding access. The website serves as a hub for these resources and advocacy efforts, positioning itself as a regional leader in open education within Manitoba. Technically, the website is built on WordPress using the Avada theme and several plugins including Yoast SEO, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, SEO practices, and a moderate performance profile. However, there are gaps in privacy compliance, notably the absence of privacy and cookie policies and no visible cookie consent mechanism. Security practices are basic with HTTPS enabled and domain protection statuses set, but DNSSEC is not enabled and security headers are not detected. From a security perspective, the site shows a moderate security posture with no critical vulnerabilities detected in the provided data. The WHOIS data indicates a privacy-protected registration consistent with the organization's non-profit status and domain age aligns with the business history. No WAF or blocking mechanisms are detected, allowing full content access. Overall, Open Education Manitoba presents a trustworthy and professional online presence with strong educational content and community focus. To enhance trust and compliance, it is recommended to implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies, improve security headers, and provide explicit incident response and vulnerability disclosure information.

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. 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.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  2. 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';…

  3. 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 openedmb.ca

This scan found 24 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

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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
62
Security headers
55
Email security
40
DNS health
75
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

Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

Open Education Manitoba operates in the education and non-profit sectors, targeting post-secondary students and faculty in Manitoba. Its competitive advantage lies in its regional focus and partnership with Campus Manitoba and the Province of Manitoba, providing authoritative and localized open educational resources. The business model is centered on advocacy and resource provision rather than commercial revenue. Growth indicators include ongoing content updates, community engagement through adoption and review programs, and integration with provincial educational initiatives. The partnership ecosystem includes Campus Manitoba and government entities, enhancing credibility and reach. Strategic observations suggest opportunities to expand digital presence and compliance to strengthen market position and user trust.

Security posture

The website maintains a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and domain statuses that prevent unauthorized transfers or deletions. However, the lack of DNSSEC and security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options indicates room for improvement. No incident response or security policy information is published, which could hinder rapid response to security events. The absence of vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files limits transparency. Data protection practices are not explicitly detailed, and cookie consent mechanisms are missing, posing compliance risks under GDPR and similar regulations. Overall, the security culture appears basic but functional, with recommendations to enhance policies, headers, and compliance documentation.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies and implement a cookie consent mechanism to ensure GDPR and privacy compliance.
  3. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  4. Create and publish an incident response policy and vulnerability disclosure program to improve transparency and readiness.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party plugins and scripts to mitigate risks from vulnerable libraries.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Open Education Manitoba
Description
Open Education Manitoba is a non-profit initiative focused on promoting open access to education in Manitoba by guiding post-secondary community members in using Open Educational Resources (OERs) under Creative Commons licensing to increase accessibility and affordability of education.
Key services
Providing access to open textbooks, Supporting adoption, adaptation, review, and creation of open textbooks, Advocacy and education about open educational resources
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 6.8.2, Yoast SEO plugin, jQuery 3.7.1, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, WPFront Notification Bar plugin, WP RSS Retriever plugin, Avada Theme, Fusion Builder
Frameworks
WordPress CMS, Avada Theme Framework
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Use of clientDeleteProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited domain statuses

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a well-structured educational resource focused on open education in Manitoba.
  2. No privacy or cookie policies found, indicating compliance gaps.
  3. No visible contact forms for direct communication; contact info limited to phone and address.
  4. Use of modern WordPress plugins and SEO tools.
  5. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  6. No explicit security headers detected in provided data.
  7. Google Analytics and Tag Manager used for tracking without visible cookie consent.
  8. WHOIS data is privacy protected but domain age and registrar are consistent with legitimacy.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern WordPress platform using the Avada theme and several well-known plugins for SEO, notifications, and RSS feed integration. The use of Google Analytics and Tag Manager indicates a moderate level of digital marketing sophistication. Performance is moderate with some optimization evident, and mobile responsiveness is good. However, accessibility features are basic and could be improved. The site lacks advanced security configurations such as DNSSEC and security headers. The technical debt appears manageable but addressing privacy compliance and security best practices would reduce risk and improve user trust.
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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