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Security report for plymouth.ac.uk

University of Plymouth · Education · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 3 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

66/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of Plymouth is a well-established higher education institution in the United Kingdom, offering a broad range of undergraduate, postgraduate, research, and professional development courses. The website reflects a strong market position with a focus on student experience, graduate employment, and research excellence. The institution targets students, researchers, academic staff, and business partners, providing comprehensive educational services and support facilities. The site is professionally designed with consistent branding and clear navigation, supporting a positive user experience.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of plymouth.ac.uk. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
75/ 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

3 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. GDPR outside view

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

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

  2. 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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. 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';…

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

Keep watching plymouth.ac.uk

This scan found 14 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
0
Security headers
65
Email security
83
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
75
Average
66

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 plymouth.ac.uk, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
10,836
Employees
888
Customers
6,014
Third parties
3,934
Weak passwords
6%

Latest record dated 2026-06-17 · 176 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 plymouth.ac.uk.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –adfs.plymouth.ac.uk2026-06-17
  • –pgtapply.plymouth.ac.uk2026-06-17
  • –itselfservice.plymouth.ac.uk2026-06-17
  • –adfs.plymouth.ac.uk2026-06-17
  • –app.eservices.plymouth.ac.uk2026-06-17

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

The university operates in the education sector with a large organizational size. It leverages partnerships with third-party service providers such as Amazon, Unibuddy, and Formtitan to enhance its offerings. The business model centers on delivering education and research services, supported by a strong digital presence and marketing efforts. The site demonstrates good trust indicators including a Teaching Excellence Framework Gold rating and transparent privacy and cookie policies. The university maintains active social media channels to engage its community and prospective students.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS with strong SSL configuration and includes CSRF protection tokens, indicating a good security baseline. Cookie consent is managed via Cookiebot, ensuring GDPR compliance and user privacy. While no explicit security or incident response policies are published, the site avoids exposing sensitive data and uses reputable third-party analytics and marketing tools. Recommendations include publishing a dedicated security policy, incident response contacts, and implementing security.txt for vulnerability disclosures. Enhancing HTTP security headers would further strengthen the security posture.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page to inform users about security practices.
  2. Provide clear incident response contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ emails.
  3. Implement a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability disclosures.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance HTTP security headers including Content Security Policy (CSP), HSTS, and X-Frame-Options.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of Plymouth
Description
Welcome to the University of Plymouth, advancing knowledge, transforming lives.
Key services
Undergraduate courses, Postgraduate courses, Research degrees, Professional development, Student life services, Accommodation, Business partnerships
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Cookiebot, Hotjar, Amazon AWS, Cloudfront CDN
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • Use of HTTPS
  • CSRF protection
  • Cookie consent management
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Hotjar, Siteimprove Analytics
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google AdSense, DoubleClick, Amazon Advertising
Tracking pixels
Hotjar, Cookiebot, DoubleClick, TTL AI
Marketing tools
Cookiebot, Hotjar, TTL AI
Transparency
good

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 site with comprehensive content
  2. Strong privacy and cookie compliance with Cookiebot integration
  3. Use of multiple analytics and marketing tools with user consent
  4. Clear contact information and social media presence
  5. No signs of blocking or WAF interference
  6. Good security posture with HTTPS and CSRF protection
  7. No explicit security or incident response policies published
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern technology stack including JavaScript, CSS, and Ruby on Rails framework, served via Amazon Cloudfront CDN. It integrates multiple analytics and marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Cookiebot for user tracking and consent management. The site is mobile-optimized with good accessibility and SEO practices. Performance is moderate, with opportunities to optimize loading times further. The technical infrastructure supports a robust and scalable platform suitable for a large educational institution.
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. 85/100Low24 findingsView report
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