Skip to main content

Security report for rwth-aachen.de

RWTH Aachen University · Education · Germany

Low risk. 1 critical or high finding in GDPR outside view.

Security score

81/100

Risk levelLow

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

RWTH Aachen University is a leading technical university in Germany, offering comprehensive academic programs, cutting-edge research, and strong corporate partnerships. The website serves a diverse audience including prospective and current students, researchers, and corporate visitors. It provides extensive information on academics, research projects, corporate relations, and university services. The university maintains a strong market position as a center of excellence in education and research. Technically, the website uses a custom CMS with modern JavaScript libraries like jQuery and Chosen, and demonstrates good mobile optimization and accessibility. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and cookie consent mechanisms in place, though explicit security headers and incident response information are lacking. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and well-structured, reflecting the university's reputable standing.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
6of 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

1 finding 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.

    • 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 rwth-aachen.de

This scan found 14 issues across 5 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. The full timeline opens with your unlock code.

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
75
Email security
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
81

Not counted

  • DNS health: did not complete in this scan.
  • 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 rwth-aachen.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
26,629
Employees
1,113
Customers
19,353
Third parties
6,163
Weak passwords
9%

Latest record dated 2026-06-17 · 527 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 rwth-aachen.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –fb4.rwth-aachen.de2026-06-17
  • –dwi-exchg.dwi.rwth-aachen.de2026-06-17
  • –dwi-exchg.dwi.rwth-aachen.de2026-06-16
  • –buchung.hsz.rwth-aachen.de2026-06-15
  • –transaction.medien.rwth-aachen.de2026-06-15

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

The university operates in the education sector with a large scale and international reach, hosting over 15,000 international members. Its business model focuses on education, research, and fostering industry collaborations. The website highlights key services such as academic offerings, research data management, career services, and corporate relations. Partnerships with entities like JARA and the university hospital enhance its ecosystem. The content quality and branding are consistent and professional, supporting strong business credibility. The university's digital presence supports its strategic goals of sustainability, diversity, and internationalization.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and includes a cookie consent banner, indicating compliance with privacy regulations. However, no explicit security policies or incident response contacts are published, and security headers are not detected in the provided data. No vulnerable libraries or exposed sensitive data were found. The absence of a vulnerability disclosure program and security.txt file suggests room for improvement in transparency and incident readiness. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by adopting additional best practices and publishing relevant policies.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a formal security policy and incident response contact information on the website.
  2. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection to improve defense-in-depth.
  3. Establish and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program including a security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  4. Enhance analytics transparency by disclosing data collection and retention policies.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
RWTH Aachen University
Description
Die RWTH Aachen ist ein Ort, an dem die Zukunft unserer industrialisierten Welt gedacht wird - Thinking the Future
Key services
Academic programs, Research projects and collaborations, Corporate relations and partnerships, Student support and counseling, Career services
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.7.1, Chosen jQuery plugin, SimpleBar, Tablesorter, Custom JavaScript
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced (implied by canonical URL https)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Cookie consent banner present

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a comprehensive portal for RWTH Aachen University with extensive academic, research, and corporate information
  2. Strong focus on accessibility and multilingual support (English and German)
  3. Includes detailed navigation for various target groups and services
  4. No signs of malicious content or security warnings
  5. Cookie consent and privacy policy are clearly presented
  6. No explicit security policy or incident response contact found
  7. No visible analytics or tracking scripts detected in provided HTML
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a custom content management system supported by modern JavaScript libraries including jQuery 3.7.1, Chosen, SimpleBar, and Tablesorter. The site is mobile optimized and accessible, with good SEO practices such as meta tags and structured navigation. Hosting appears to be managed with DNS servers from DFN, a German research network, indicating a reliable academic hosting environment. Performance is moderate, with potential for optimization. The absence of common CMS footprints suggests a tailored platform, which may require dedicated maintenance resources. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports the university's digital needs effectively but could benefit from performance tuning and enhanced security configurations.
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 rwth-aachen.de. 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 rwth-aachen.de.

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.