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Security report for polytechnique.edu

École polytechnique · Education · France

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

60/100

Risk levelMedium

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

École polytechnique is a prestigious French engineering school that combines research, education, and innovation at the highest scientific and technological levels. It operates as a leading educational institution within the Institut polytechnique de Paris, offering a wide range of programs including Bachelor, Master, Doctorate, and Executive education. The school maintains strong partnerships with industry and alumni networks, supporting entrepreneurship and technology transfer. Technically, the website is built on Drupal CMS with modern frontend libraries, but suffers from slow performance and lacks a valid SSL certificate, which impacts its security posture. Privacy compliance is well addressed with clear policies and consent mechanisms. Overall, the institution presents a professional and trustworthy digital presence, though improvements in security and performance are recommended.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
25/ 100 · Critical
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

5 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 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

    • High

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Cloudflare

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

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

Keep watching polytechnique.edu

This scan found 17 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
50
Security headers
55
Email security
50
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
25
Average
60

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 institution holds a strong market position as a top-tier engineering school in France, targeting students, researchers, entrepreneurs, and corporate partners. Its business model focuses on education, research, innovation, and professional training, supported by a foundation and alumni association. The website reflects a comprehensive offering of academic programs and research activities, with clear navigation and branding consistency. Partnerships with Institut polytechnique de Paris and other entities enhance its ecosystem. Growth indicators include active innovation centers and international mobility programs. The school leverages digital tools for marketing and analytics, maintaining GDPR compliance and user privacy.

Security posture

The website currently lacks a valid SSL certificate and does not support modern TLS protocols, which is a critical security gap. No security headers are detected, and advanced security features like HSTS, OCSP stapling, and session resumption are disabled. While no immediate vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed or POODLE are found, the absence of HTTPS and security best practices significantly lowers the security score. Privacy policies and cookie consent are implemented, indicating awareness of compliance requirements. Incident response and vulnerability disclosure information are not publicly available, suggesting room for improvement in transparency and readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate supporting TLS 1.2 or higher to secure all communications.
  2. Implement HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to mitigate common web attacks.
  3. Enable HSTS with includeSubDomains and preload to enforce HTTPS usage.
  4. Publish a clear security policy and vulnerability disclosure program to enhance trust and incident response capabilities.
  5. Optimize website performance by reducing page size and resource count to improve load times and user experience.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses Drupal CMS with Bootstrap, Slick Carousel, FontAwesome, and Typekit fonts for a modern and responsive design. JavaScript libraries include jQuery and Popper.js. The site integrates Matomo analytics and Pardot marketing tools, with cookie consent managed by tarteaucitron. Despite a rich content structure and good accessibility features, the site suffers from slow loading times and a large page size. The invalid SSL certificate and lack of modern TLS protocols represent significant technical debt and security risk. Hosting provider details are not explicitly identified. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a professional educational platform but requires security and performance enhancements.
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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