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Security report for ualberta.ca

University of Alberta · Education · Canada

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of Alberta website represents a major Canadian educational institution with a strong market position as a top 5 university in Canada. The site targets students, faculty, and prospective students, offering a wide range of academic programs and research opportunities. The business model is that of a public university providing higher education and research services. Technically, the site uses a modern tech stack including jQuery, Font Awesome, and Google Tag Manager, hosted on Cascade CMS. The site is mobile optimized and well structured, with good SEO and accessibility features. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and multiple reputable analytics and tracking services in use, though explicit security headers and privacy policies are not clearly present in the provided content. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and safe for general audiences.

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

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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

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

  2. 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

    • 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

  3. 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.

    • High

      Weak Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

  4. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • High

      Weak SPF Policy

      SPF record has permissive policy allowing any server to send email

      What to do: Use -all or ~all qualifier for better email security

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

Keep watching ualberta.ca

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.

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
82
Security headers
75
Email security
70
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
73

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 Alberta holds a strong position in the Canadian education sector, serving a large student body of approximately 40,000. Its competitive advantage lies in its reputation, extensive program offerings, and research capabilities. Revenue streams likely include tuition, government funding, and research grants. The target customer segments include domestic and international students, researchers, and academic staff. The university maintains partnerships with various educational and research organizations, though no explicit partner domains were identified in the content. The website reflects a mature digital presence with consistent branding and comprehensive content.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and use of multiple analytics and tracking tools from reputable providers. However, the absence of visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and lack of explicit privacy and cookie policies indicate areas for improvement. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the provided content. The lack of a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file suggests limited formal incident response transparency. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be enhanced by publishing clear policies and implementing additional HTTP security headers.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism to improve privacy compliance.
  2. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to enhance security posture.
  3. Provide explicit contact information for security incidents and designate a Data Protection Officer contact.
  4. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible security reporting.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking services to ensure compliance with privacy regulations and minimize security risks.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of Alberta
Description
The University of Alberta is a Top 5 Canadian university located in Edmonton, Alberta, and home to 40,000 students in a wide variety of programs.
Key services
Higher education, Research programs, Student services
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.6.0, Font Awesome 6 Pro, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, LinkedIn Insight Tag, TikTok Pixel, Microsoft Clarity, Crazy Egg, Twitter Universal Website Tag, Facebook Pixel, Live Clive Cloud
Frameworks
Cascade CMS 8.13.0
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Google site verification present
  • Use of multiple reputable analytics and tracking services

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Crazy Egg, LinkedIn Insight, TikTok Pixel, Facebook Pixel, Twitter Universal Website Tag
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
LinkedIn Insight, TikTok Pixel, Microsoft Clarity, Facebook Pixel, Twitter Universal Website Tag, Crazy Egg
Marketing tools
Live Clive Cloud
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and professional design
  2. No WHOIS data publicly available, likely due to privacy protection
  3. Multiple reputable analytics and tracking services are used extensively
  4. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies detected in the provided content
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found
  7. Strong branding and consistent use of university identity
  8. No adult or questionable content detected
  9. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Cascade CMS with a modern front-end stack including jQuery and Font Awesome. It integrates multiple third-party analytics and marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, TikTok Pixel, Facebook Pixel, and LinkedIn Insight. The site is mobile optimized and demonstrates good SEO practices with appropriate meta tags and alternate hreflang links. Performance is moderate, likely influenced by the number of external scripts loaded. Accessibility features appear to be implemented at a good level. Technical risks include reliance on multiple third-party scripts which may impact privacy and security if not regularly audited.
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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