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Security report for ulaval.ca

Université Laval · Education · Canada

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Université Laval is a large, internationally recognized Canadian public university located in Québec, Canada. The website provides comprehensive information about its educational programs, research activities, student services, and community engagement. It targets prospective and current students, researchers, and academic partners. The university maintains a strong market position as a leading research institution with a focus on quality education and innovation. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 11, leveraging modern web technologies such as lazy loading images and responsive design. It integrates Google Tag Manager for analytics and marketing purposes. The site demonstrates good performance, accessibility, and SEO optimization, with a professional and consistent design. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, implements key security headers, and avoids exposing sensitive data. However, it lacks explicit privacy and cookie policies and does not provide a vulnerability disclosure or incident response contact, which are areas for improvement. Overall, the website is trustworthy and professional, with a high legitimacy score despite the absence of WHOIS data due to privacy protection. Strategic recommendations include enhancing privacy compliance, adding cookie consent mechanisms, and publishing security policies to further strengthen trust and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
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

6 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 Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • 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 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

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

Keep watching ulaval.ca

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

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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
40
Email security
80
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
71

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

Université Laval operates as a public educational institution offering undergraduate, graduate, and research programs. Its competitive advantages include a strong international reputation, comprehensive academic offerings, and extensive campus services. The business model is centered on education and research funding, targeting students, academics, and institutional partners. The university's ecosystem includes multiple affiliated domains for student services, research, and administration, indicating a well-integrated digital presence. Growth indicators include active news updates and event calendars. The institution maintains partnerships through official channels and social media, supporting its market presence and community engagement.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforcement and multiple security headers such as HSTS, CSP, and X-Frame-Options. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive information were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a published security policy, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms suggests room for improvement in transparency and readiness. Compliance with GDPR and cookie consent regulations appears limited, which could pose regulatory risks. The use of Google Tag Manager introduces moderate user tracking, necessitating clear privacy disclosures. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be enhanced by formalizing policies and improving user privacy controls.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy and link it prominently on the website.
  2. Implement a cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  3. Establish and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file.
  4. Provide clear incident response contact information for security issues.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Université Laval
Description
L'Université Laval, située dans la ville de Québec au Canada, est reconnue à l'international pour l'excellence de sa formation aux 3 cycles et de sa recherche scientifique
Key services
Undergraduate and graduate education, Research programs, Student services, Campus facilities, Community engagement
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 11, Google Tag Manager, bLazy (lazy loading images), Slick Carousel
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of security headers
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with CSRF tokens (implied by Drupal)

Analytics and tracking

Services
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 fully accessible with rich content in French primarily
  2. No signs of WAF or blocking mechanisms
  3. Uses modern CMS Drupal 11 with lazy loading and responsive design
  4. Strong presence of official social media and contact information
  5. No explicit privacy or cookie policy links found in provided HTML snippet
  6. WHOIS data unavailable, likely due to privacy protection or registrar restrictions
  7. Security headers and HTTPS are properly implemented
  8. No visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data in HTML
  9. Multiple internal and external links to official university services and resources
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 11, a modern and widely supported CMS, indicating a robust technical foundation. It uses lazy loading for images and slick carousel for interactive content, enhancing performance and user experience. Google Tag Manager is integrated for analytics and marketing, reflecting digital maturity. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with proper meta tags for SEO. No critical technical debt or outdated technologies were observed. Hosting details are not explicit, but the presence of security headers and HTTPS suggests a professionally managed infrastructure. Opportunities exist to improve privacy compliance and security transparency.
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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