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Security report for sheffield.ac.uk

The University of Sheffield · Education · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 2 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of Sheffield is a prestigious higher education institution based in the United Kingdom, recognized globally as a top-100 university and a member of the Russell Group. The website clearly targets prospective students, researchers, and business partners, offering comprehensive information on undergraduate, postgraduate, and research programs. The institution emphasizes its strong market position through awards and rankings, reinforcing its reputation for academic excellence and student experience. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10, leveraging modern web technologies including FontAwesome for icons and OneTrust for cookie consent management. The site is well-optimized for mobile devices, accessible, and SEO-friendly, with a moderate performance profile. Hosting is managed via the university's own CDN, ensuring reliable delivery. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, implements cookie consent mechanisms, and includes security headers with nonce values for scripts. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. However, explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not publicly available, representing an area for improvement. Overall, the website demonstrates a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR. The risk profile is low, with recommendations focusing on enhancing transparency around security policies and incident response to further strengthen user trust and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
63/ 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

2 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

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

Keep watching sheffield.ac.uk

This scan found 15 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
0
Security headers
70
Email security
80
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
63
Average
65

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 of Sheffield holds a strong market position as a leading UK university with global recognition. Its business model centers on education delivery, research excellence, and partnerships with industry and international entities. Revenue streams likely include tuition fees, research grants, and philanthropic donations. The target customer segments include domestic and international students, academic researchers, and corporate collaborators. The university's partnership ecosystem is robust, including international networks and business collaborations. Growth indicators include recent awards and rankings, as well as active engagement in research impact and community roles. Strategically, the university maintains a consistent brand and leverages trust signals such as prestigious awards and memberships. The website supports these efforts with clear navigation and comprehensive content, facilitating user engagement and conversion.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of Content Security Policy nonces, and a comprehensive cookie consent framework powered by OneTrust. No exposed credentials or sensitive data were found in the HTML content. The absence of a published security policy or vulnerability disclosure program suggests room for improvement in transparency and incident readiness. The site uses third-party scripts such as Google Tag Manager, which should be regularly audited to mitigate supply chain risks. Overall, the security posture is strong but could benefit from explicit documentation of security practices and incident response procedures.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and user guidance.
  2. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  3. Provide clear incident response contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  4. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and libraries to avoid vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance HTTP security headers by adding or verifying headers like X-Content-Type-Options and Referrer-Policy.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The University of Sheffield
Description
A world-class university – a unique student experience. Sheffield is a research university in the Russell Group with a global reputation for excellence.
Key services
Undergraduate courses, Postgraduate taught courses, PhD study, Research partnerships, Accommodation, International student support
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, FontAwesome, OneTrust Cookie Consent, Google Tag Manager
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with proper input types

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Marketing tools
OneTrust Cookie Consent
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-structured.
  2. Strong emphasis on education, research, and student services.
  3. Comprehensive cookie consent and privacy mechanisms implemented.
  4. No signs of security blocking or WAF interference.
  5. Social media presence is extensive and official.
  6. No exposed sensitive information or security vulnerabilities detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS, indicating a current and maintainable technical infrastructure. The use of a CDN (cdn.sheffield.ac.uk) suggests good hosting and content delivery practices. The site includes responsive design elements and accessibility features, supporting a broad user base. Performance is moderate, with potential optimization opportunities in media delivery and script loading. The presence of structured metadata and Open Graph tags supports SEO and social media integration. Overall, the technical implementation is robust with minor areas for enhancement in performance tuning and security header completeness.
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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