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Security report for sabanciuniv.edu

Sabancı Üniversitesi · Education · Turkey

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Sabancı Üniversitesi is a prominent private university in Turkey offering interdisciplinary education and research. The website provides comprehensive academic, administrative, and research information targeting prospective and current students, faculty, and researchers. The site uses modern web technologies including Drupal 10 and Google Tag Manager, ensuring a professional and responsive user experience. Security posture is strong with HTTPS and no visible vulnerabilities, though cookie consent and incident response policies could be improved. Overall, the website reflects a trustworthy and well-established educational institution with a strong digital presence.

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

6 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: Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Cloudflare, Google APIs

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

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

Keep watching sabanciuniv.edu

This scan found 21 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
67
Security headers
55
Email security
70
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
69

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 university positions itself as a leading institution in Turkey with a unique interdisciplinary education model. It serves a broad audience including undergraduate, graduate, and international students. The business model focuses on education, research, and community engagement. The website ecosystem includes multiple subdomains for faculties, alumni, and research centers, indicating a mature and segmented digital strategy. Partnerships and related domains are consistent with academic and administrative functions. The absence of explicit commercial activities suggests a non-profit educational focus.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a good security posture with enforced HTTPS and use of a modern CMS platform. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the provided content. However, the lack of visible security headers and absence of explicit incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies indicate areas for improvement. The site does not display cookie consent mechanisms, which may affect compliance with privacy regulations. Overall, the security maturity is solid but could benefit from enhanced transparency and policy publication.

Recommendations

  1. Implement a visible cookie consent banner to comply with GDPR and other privacy laws.
  2. Publish a clear incident response and vulnerability disclosure policy to improve security transparency.
  3. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  4. Provide explicit contact information for security incidents, including security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and 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
Sabancı Üniversitesi
Description
Sabancı Üniversitesi, bilimde ve toplum üzerinde dönüştürücü etkileri olan yenilikçi araştırma ve eğitim faaliyetlerindeki öncü konumunu geliştirmektedir.
Key services
Undergraduate and Graduate Education, Research and Development, Career Support, International Student Programs
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Font Awesome, lazysizes (lazy loading images), Google Fonts (Roboto, Crimson Text)
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No visible exposed sensitive data
  • Use of modern CMS with security updates

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a well-established university site with comprehensive academic and administrative information.
  2. Content is primarily in Turkish with English alternate links.
  3. No signs of phishing, malware, or suspicious activity.
  4. Use of modern web technologies and CMS (Drupal 10).
  5. No explicit privacy or cookie consent banners detected, which may be a compliance gap.
  6. No visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy found.
  7. Contact information is available via contact forms but no explicit emails or phone numbers found in the provided content.
  8. External links mostly point to university subdomains and trusted educational resources.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and secure CMS platform, leveraging lazy loading for images and Google Tag Manager for analytics. The design is responsive and optimized for mobile devices. Performance is moderate, with potential for improvement in loading speed. SEO practices are good with proper meta tags and canonical links. Accessibility features such as skip links and language switchers are implemented, enhancing usability. The technical infrastructure supports a professional and scalable digital presence 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

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