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Security report for uci.edu

University of California, Irvine · Education · United States

Medium risk. 3 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

University of California, Irvine (UCI) is a prominent public research university established in 1965, recognized for its academic excellence, research contributions, and community engagement. The website serves a diverse audience including prospective and current students, faculty, alumni, and the local community. It offers comprehensive information on academics, research, admissions, campus life, and healthcare services through UCI Health. The institution holds a strong market position as a top-tier public university with a large student body and significant economic impact in Orange County, California. Technically, the website employs a modern and stable technology stack including Bootstrap, jQuery, FontAwesome, and Google Tag Manager, ensuring good performance, mobile optimization, and accessibility. The site is well-structured with clear navigation and professional design, reflecting high digital maturity. However, it does not appear to use a common CMS, indicating a custom or university-developed platform. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS with good SSL configuration and no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. Security best practices are partially implemented, but there is a lack of explicit security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. Privacy compliance is moderate, with a privacy and cookie policy present but no explicit cookie consent mechanism or GDPR compliance indicators. Overall, the website is trustworthy, professional, and safe, with strong business credibility and technical implementation. Strategic improvements could focus on enhancing privacy compliance, security transparency, and incident response readiness to further strengthen the security posture and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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

3 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 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. 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 uci.edu

This scan found 19 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
90
Security headers
55
Email security
60
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
74

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 uci.edu, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
25,821
Employees
493
Customers
13,703
Third parties
11,625
Weak passwords
9%

Latest record dated 2026-06-15 · 319 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 uci.edu.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –intranet.merage.uci.edu2026-06-15
  • –adfs.ad.uci.edu2026-06-15
  • –login.uci.edu2026-06-15
  • –login.uci.edu2026-06-14
  • –shib.service.uci.edu2026-06-13

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

UCI operates as a large public educational institution within the University of California system, targeting students, researchers, and the community. Its competitive advantages include a strong academic reputation, research output, and community impact. Revenue streams likely include state funding, tuition, research grants, healthcare services, and philanthropic donations. The university maintains a broad partnership ecosystem with various academic, research, and community organizations. Growth indicators include ongoing fundraising campaigns and expanding research initiatives. The website reflects a mature, well-established institution with a clear focus on education, research, and community service.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and no visible security flaws in the HTML content. However, it lacks published security policies, vulnerability disclosure programs, and incident response contacts, which are important for transparency and user trust. The presence of third-party tracking and advertising pixels indicates moderate user tracking, which should be balanced with privacy compliance. No critical vulnerabilities or malware indicators were found. The security score is good but could be improved by adopting more comprehensive security governance and user privacy controls.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and user guidance.
  2. Implement a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  3. Add explicit cookie consent mechanisms to comply with privacy regulations and improve transparency.
  4. Include incident response contact information such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  5. Enhance HTTP security headers (e.g., Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options) to mitigate common web attacks.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
University of California, Irvine
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of California, Irvine
Description
UC Irvine is a public research university founded in 1965, member of the Association of American Universities, ranked among the top 10 public universities in the US. It offers 224 degree programs, has over 36,000 students, and is a major employer in Orange County, California.
Key services
Undergraduate and graduate education, Research programs, Community engagement, Healthcare services via UCI Health, Alumni relations and fundraising
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Bootstrap 3, jQuery 2.1.4, FontAwesome 5.15.1, Weather Icons 2.0.5, Google Tag Manager, YouTube embed
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google Tag Manager asynchronously
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
The Trade Desk
Tracking pixels
TTD Universal Pixel
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 public university site with comprehensive academic and community information.
  2. Strong branding and consistent design throughout the site.
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious content.
  4. Good use of modern web technologies and accessibility features.
  5. Limited explicit privacy and security policy disclosures; room for improvement.
  6. No visible forms collecting sensitive personal data on the homepage.
  7. Multiple external links to official university subdomains and trusted partners.
  8. Social media presence is official and consistent with the university brand.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a stable and widely supported technology stack with Bootstrap 3, jQuery 2.1.4, and FontAwesome 5.15.1, ensuring compatibility and responsiveness. Google Tag Manager is used for analytics and marketing, with asynchronous loading to optimize performance. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with semantic HTML and ARIA labels. Hosting appears to be managed by the university or associated providers, with no explicit CMS detected, suggesting a custom-built platform. Performance is moderate, with potential for improvement by updating libraries and optimizing assets. No technical debt or critical risks were identified in the HTML content.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 59/100Medium28 findingsView report
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