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Security report for ox.ac.uk

University of Oxford · Education · United Kingdom

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

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of Oxford is a globally renowned educational institution providing world-class research and education services. The website reflects its prestigious market position with comprehensive content targeting prospective and current students, staff, alumni, and the wider community. The site offers detailed information on admissions, research, events, and university divisions, supported by a consistent and professional brand presentation. Technically, the website is built on Drupal CMS with modern JavaScript libraries and analytics tools, ensuring good performance, accessibility, and SEO optimization. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforcement and cookie consent mechanisms, although explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not prominently published. Overall, the website is trustworthy, well-maintained, and compliant with GDPR and privacy standards.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
80/ 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

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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

  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. 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

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

Keep watching ox.ac.uk

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.

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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
42
Security headers
50
Email security
83
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
80
Average
71

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 ox.ac.uk, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
19,797
Employees
137
Customers
16,189
Third parties
3,471
Weak passwords
9%

Latest record dated 2026-06-16 · 477 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 ox.ac.uk.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –www.physics.ox.ac.uk2026-06-16
  • –evision.ox.ac.uk2026-06-16
  • –www.physics.ox.ac.uk2026-06-16
  • –physics.ox.ac.uk2026-06-15
  • –it.ox.ac.uk2026-06-12

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

Oxford University operates in the education sector with a large organizational size and a long-established history dating back to 1096. Its business model focuses on academic education, research, and lifelong learning. The university maintains a broad partnership ecosystem with numerous colleges and departments, reflected in the extensive external domain links. Revenue streams likely include tuition fees, research grants, donations, and events. The website's professional content and strong branding reinforce its competitive advantage and global reputation. The presence of multiple social media channels and marketing tools indicates active engagement with diverse audiences.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enabled and standard security headers likely in place. Cookie consent and privacy policies are implemented, indicating compliance with data protection regulations. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a publicly visible security policy or incident response contact limits transparency. The use of third-party scripts and analytics requires ongoing monitoring to mitigate potential risks. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be enhanced by publishing explicit security governance documentation and vulnerability disclosure information.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page with clear contact details.
  2. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file.
  3. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts to minimize security risks.
  4. Enhance HTTP security headers such as Content-Security-Policy if not already fully implemented.
  5. Improve visibility of contact information for security and privacy concerns to build trust.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
University of Oxford
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of Oxford
Description
Oxford University provides world-class research and education to benefit society on a local, regional, national and global scale.
Key services
Undergraduate admissions, Graduate admissions, Lifelong learning, Research, Public events, Colleges and departments
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal CMS, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Colorbox, CarouFredSel carousel, Harvey.js, HTML5, CSS3, Google Fonts
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security tokens in forms

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Bizographics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Bizographics
Tracking pixels
Cloudflare Insights
Marketing tools
Bizographics
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is professionally designed and well maintained.
  2. Content is comprehensive and relevant to education and research.
  3. Strong presence of official university branding and social media.
  4. Cookie consent and privacy policies are implemented and accessible.
  5. No visible security or privacy red flags.
  6. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly listed on homepage; likely available on dedicated contact pages.
  7. Use of multiple external domains related to university departments and colleges.
  8. Use of modern web technologies and analytics tools.
  9. No evidence of adult or questionable content.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses Drupal CMS with a modern front-end stack including jQuery, Google Tag Manager, and various JavaScript libraries for UI components like carousels and modals. The site loads multiple CSS and JS assets optimized via aggregation. Google Fonts are used for typography. Analytics and marketing tools are integrated responsibly with cookie consent. Hosting appears robust with Cloudflare Insights monitoring performance. The site is mobile optimized and accessible, with semantic HTML and ARIA landmarks. Performance is moderate, with potential for further optimization in asset loading and caching strategies. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a high-quality user experience aligned with the university's brand.
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. 76/100Low24 findingsView report
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