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Security report for ul.ie

University of Limerick · Education · Ireland

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in Security headers and SSL/TLS.

Security score

81/100

Risk levelLow

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

The University of Limerick is a well-established higher education institution in Ireland, providing educational and research services primarily targeting students and the academic community. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand image, with comprehensive privacy and cookie policies indicating strong compliance with GDPR regulations. The technical infrastructure is modern, leveraging Drupal 11 CMS, Google Tag Manager, Matomo analytics, and Cookiebot for consent management, demonstrating a mature digital presence. Security posture is generally good with HTTPS enforced and privacy-respecting analytics, though the absence of visible security headers suggests room for improvement. Overall, the website is trustworthy, well-structured, and user-friendly, with no signs of adult or questionable content.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
100/ 100 · Low
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

2 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. 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

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

Keep watching ul.ie

This scan found 17 issues across 5 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
62
Security headers
55
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
100
Average
81

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 Limerick operates in the education sector with a public university business model. It targets students, researchers, and academic professionals, offering higher education and research services. The website's integration with multiple analytics and consent tools indicates a focus on data-driven insights and compliance. The lack of visible contact information and terms of service pages suggests potential areas for enhancing user engagement and transparency. The presence of multiple external domains related to analytics and support services reflects a broad partnership ecosystem supporting the university's digital operations.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a solid security foundation with HTTPS and cookie consent mechanisms that respect user privacy preferences. The use of Matomo with disabled cookies and Do Not Track support is a positive privacy feature. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options could expose the site to certain risks. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the provided content. The site would benefit from regular security audits and implementation of additional HTTP security headers to enhance protection against common web threats.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Publish clear terms of service and contact information to improve transparency and user trust.
  3. Regularly audit third-party scripts and libraries to ensure no vulnerabilities are introduced.
  4. Enhance monitoring and incident response capabilities to quickly detect and mitigate security incidents.
  5. Maintain up-to-date CMS and modules to reduce risk from known vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of Limerick
Description
The University of Limerick is an educational institution providing higher education and research services.
Key services
Higher education, Research, Student services
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 11, Google Tag Manager, Matomo Analytics, Cookiebot Consent Management, Blackfire observability
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent with blocking mode
  • Do Not Track respected in Matomo

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo, Google Analytics, Silktide, New Relic
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo, Silktide, Microsoft telemetry, New Relic, TikTok
Marketing tools
Cookiebot
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website uses modern CMS Drupal 11
  2. Comprehensive cookie consent and privacy compliance
  3. Multiple reputable analytics and monitoring tools integrated
  4. No visible security headers detected in provided data
  5. WHOIS data unavailable, limiting domain trust verification
  6. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in HTML content
  7. No terms of service page detected
  8. Strong branding and consistent design
  9. No adult or questionable content detected
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 11, a modern and widely used CMS, indicating a robust and scalable platform. Integration with Google Tag Manager, Matomo, and Cookiebot shows advanced analytics and privacy management capabilities. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and good accessibility features. Performance is moderate, likely influenced by multiple external scripts and analytics tools. There is no evidence of technical debt or deprecated technologies. Opportunities exist to improve security headers and streamline third-party integrations for better performance and security.
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. 53/100Medium26 findingsView report
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