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Security report for ub.edu

Universitat de Barcelona · Education · Spain

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Universitat de Barcelona (UB) is a leading public academic institution in Spain, specializing in education, research, and innovation. The website serves a diverse audience including students, researchers, academic staff, alumni, companies, and media. It offers comprehensive information on academic programs, research initiatives, and institutional activities, positioning itself as a major educational entity in the region. The digital presence is supported by a mature technical infrastructure leveraging Liferay CMS and modern JavaScript frameworks, ensuring a good user experience and accessibility. However, the absence of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support is a critical security flaw that undermines user trust and data protection. Privacy compliance is well addressed through Cookiebot and Google Consent Mode, with clear cookie and privacy policies in place. Overall, the website is professional and content-rich but requires urgent security improvements to meet modern standards.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
25/ 100 · Critical
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

4 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.

    • 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, LinkedIn, YouTube

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

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

Keep watching ub.edu

This scan found 16 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

€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

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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
50
Security headers
70
Email security
50
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
25
Average
63

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

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 ub.edu, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
26,447
Employees
2,815
Customers
18,275
Third parties
5,357
Weak passwords
15%

Latest record dated 2026-06-18 · 344 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 ub.edu.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –ub.edu2026-06-18
  • –ub.edu2026-06-17
  • –nuvol365.edau.ub.edu2026-06-17
  • –campusvirtual.ub.edu2026-06-17
  • –nuvol365.edau.ub.edu2026-06-16

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

UB operates as a public university with a strong market position in Spain's higher education sector. Its business model focuses on delivering academic programs and fostering research and innovation. The website reflects a well-established brand with consistent messaging and extensive social media engagement. The institution maintains partnerships and memberships with European academic networks, enhancing its reputation and collaborative opportunities. The lack of direct contact details on the homepage suggests a structured approach to communication, likely centralized through dedicated contact pages. The digital ecosystem includes e-commerce and publishing subsidiaries, indicating diversified service offerings.

Security posture

The website demonstrates partial adherence to security best practices with several HTTP security headers implemented. However, the lack of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols represent a major vulnerability, exposing users to potential data interception and undermining trust. No critical vulnerabilities like Heartbleed or POODLE were detected, but the absence of HTTPS is a critical issue. Cookie consent mechanisms and privacy policies are robust, indicating good privacy governance. Incident response and vulnerability disclosure information are not publicly available, suggesting room for improvement in transparency and security maturity.

Recommendations

  1. Install and maintain a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across all site pages.
  2. Enable and configure modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and strong cipher suites.
  3. Implement OCSP stapling and session resumption to improve security and performance.
  4. Publish clear security policies including incident response and vulnerability disclosure procedures.
  5. Enhance contact information visibility for security and privacy inquiries to improve trust.
  6. Regularly audit and update security headers and Content Security Policy for comprehensive protection.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Liferay CMS platform, utilizing JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, Alloy UI, and Glider.js for UI components and interactivity. Cookiebot manages cookie consent, integrated with Google Consent Mode and Google Tag Manager for analytics and marketing. The site is multilingual with language selectors and alternate hreflang tags. Performance data is missing or not measured, but the site includes responsive design and accessibility features. The hosting provider is not explicitly identified. The absence of SSL/TLS is a significant technical risk. The site uses CDN resources for static content delivery, enhancing load times and scalability.
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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