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Security report for uci.edu

University of California, Irvine · Education · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS, Security headers and 3 other checks.

Security score

59/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of California, Irvine (UCI) is a prestigious public research university established in 1965, recognized among the top 10 public universities in the United States. The website serves as the primary digital presence for UCI, offering comprehensive information about academics, research, community engagement, healthcare services, and alumni relations. It targets prospective and current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the local community, reflecting a strong institutional brand and market position within the education sector. Technically, the website employs a modern tech stack including Bootstrap 3, jQuery, FontAwesome, and Google Tag Manager, ensuring responsive design and good accessibility. The site is well-structured with clear navigation and optimized for mobile devices. Performance is moderate, with asynchronous loading of analytics scripts enhancing user experience. However, no explicit CMS was detected, suggesting a custom or proprietary platform. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS with excellent SSL configuration and no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. Security headers are not explicitly detected, and there is no visible incident response or security policy documentation. Privacy compliance is basic, with a privacy and cookie policy present but lacking a cookie consent mechanism. Contact information is clearly provided, enhancing trust and credibility. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and well-maintained, with a high level of content quality and business credibility. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, implementing a cookie consent mechanism for GDPR compliance, and publishing explicit security and incident response policies to further strengthen the security posture and user trust.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of uci.edu. View the latest report

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

5 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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

      Unable to retrieve SSL certificate

      Could not establish secure connection to retrieve certificate information

      What to do: Check if the server is accessible and SSL/TLS is properly configured

  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 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 Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

  4. 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.

  5. 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 20 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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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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
55
Email security
65
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
59

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 holds a strong market position as a leading public research university with a broad range of academic programs and research initiatives. Its business model centers on education, research, healthcare, and community services, supported by a large student body and significant economic impact in Orange County. The university benefits from a robust partnership ecosystem including specialized schools and healthcare affiliates. Growth indicators include ongoing fundraising campaigns and expansion of research centers. The website reflects a mature digital presence aligned with institutional goals and stakeholder needs.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a solid security foundation with enforced HTTPS and no apparent vulnerabilities or sensitive data exposure. However, the absence of security headers and incident response information indicates room for improvement in defense-in-depth and transparency. Privacy compliance is partial, lacking explicit cookie consent mechanisms and GDPR indicators. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files were found, limiting external security engagement. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be enhanced by adopting industry best practices and formalizing security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Implement HTTP security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to mitigate common web attacks.
  2. Deploy a cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply with GDPR and enhance user privacy transparency.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to improve transparency and preparedness.
  4. Consider adding a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to engage with security researchers.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and dependencies to ensure no vulnerable libraries are included.

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 contributing billions to the economy.
Key services
Undergraduate and graduate education, Research programs, Healthcare services via UCI Health, Community engagement, Athletics and arts programs
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

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

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of async loading for analytics scripts

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

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 university homepage with comprehensive academic and community information.
  2. No signs of malicious content or security issues detected.
  3. Good use of modern web technologies and responsive design.
  4. Privacy and cookie policies are present but cookie consent mechanism is not implemented.
  5. No explicit terms of service or security policy pages found.
  6. Contact information is clearly provided including phone, address, and search form.
  7. Social media presence is strong with official accounts linked in footer.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a stable and widely supported technology stack with Bootstrap 3 and jQuery 2.1.4, which are somewhat dated but still functional. The use of asynchronous script loading and responsive design indicates attention to performance and user experience. No modern CMS or frameworks like React or Angular were detected, suggesting a traditional server-rendered approach. Hosting appears to be managed internally or via university infrastructure. Opportunities exist to modernize the tech stack and improve performance metrics further. Accessibility and SEO are well addressed with semantic HTML and meta tags.
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. 74/100Medium27 findingsView report
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