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Security report for stanfordmedicine.org

Stanford Medicine · Healthcare · United States

Medium risk. 8 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

62/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Stanford Medicine is a large, integrated academic health system focused on research, education, and clinical care. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand presence with rich content about medical research breakthroughs, clinical trials, and patient care. Technically, the site uses Adobe Experience Manager CMS, integrates video content via Kaltura, and employs Google Analytics and Tag Manager for tracking. Security posture is good with HTTPS and domain protections, but lacks DNSSEC and explicit security policies. Privacy compliance is weak due to missing privacy and cookie policies. Overall, the site is trustworthy and authoritative in the healthcare sector.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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

8 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  2. 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 Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • 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';…

  3. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

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

Keep watching stanfordmedicine.org

This scan found 25 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
77
Security headers
25
Email security
40
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
62

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

Stanford Medicine holds a strong market position as a leading academic medical institution. Its business model integrates clinical services with cutting-edge research and education. The site targets patients, healthcare professionals, researchers, and students. The presence of clinical trial information and research news indicates active engagement in innovation. Partnerships and subsidiaries include Stanford Children’s Health and Stanford Health Care, reinforcing its ecosystem. The domain age and registrar data support legitimacy and long-term operation.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and domain status protections, but lacks DNSSEC and published security policies or incident response contacts. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms were found. Tracking technologies are used extensively, but no sensitive data exposure was detected in the HTML. Security headers are not explicitly visible in the provided data. Recommendations include enabling DNSSEC, publishing privacy and security policies, and adding incident response contacts to improve security maturity.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to enhance domain name system security.
  2. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanisms to improve GDPR compliance.
  3. Implement and publish security headers such as Content Security Policy and HSTS.
  4. Add a security.txt file and vulnerability disclosure policy to facilitate responsible reporting.
  5. Provide clear contact information including security incident response channels.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Stanford Medicine
Description
Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising Stanford Children’s Health, Stanford School of Medicine, and Stanford Health Care. It focuses on research, education, and clinical care, including fighting COVID-19 and advancing biomedical knowledge.
Key services
Clinical care, Medical research, Medical education, Clinical trials
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), Kaltura Video Player, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, YouTube Player API, Adobe DTM (Dynamic Tag Management)
Frameworks
Adobe AEM
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status includes clientDeleteProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Adobe DTM
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ad Services
Tracking pixels
Adobe DTM
Marketing tools
Adobe DTM
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally maintained academic health system site.
  2. Content is rich with research, education, and clinical care information.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie policies found on the main page.
  4. Use of modern web technologies and video integration.
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet.
  6. No visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information.
  7. No incident response or security contact information found.
  8. Domain is secured with HTTPS and has domain status protections but lacks DNSSEC.
Technical notes

Notes

The site is built on Adobe Experience Manager CMS, leveraging modern web technologies including Kaltura for video, Google Tag Manager, and Adobe DTM for marketing and analytics. The site is mobile optimized with responsive images and good SEO meta tags. Performance is moderate, with asynchronous loading of scripts. Accessibility features are basic but present. Hosting appears to be on AWS infrastructure. Technical debt is low, but improvements in security headers and DNSSEC would strengthen the infrastructure.
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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