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Security report for upenn.edu

University of Pennsylvania · Education · United States

Medium risk. 3 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of Pennsylvania operates a comprehensive and professionally designed website that serves as a digital gateway for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the general public. The site offers extensive academic, research, and community information, reflecting its status as a prestigious Ivy League institution. The technical infrastructure leverages modern web technologies including Drupal 10 CMS, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager, ensuring a robust and scalable platform. Multimedia content such as embedded videos and rich imagery enhance user engagement. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities, though security headers could be improved. Privacy compliance is well addressed with clear policies, though cookie consent mechanisms are not explicitly detected. Overall, the website demonstrates high business credibility and trustworthiness, supporting the university's brand and mission effectively.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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 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 upenn.edu

This scan found 21 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.

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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
85
Security headers
50
Email security
75
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
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 upenn.edu, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
55,321
Employees
142
Customers
47,644
Third parties
7,535
Weak passwords
12%

Latest record dated 2026-06-10 · 453 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 upenn.edu.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –office365.password.isc.upenn.edu2026-06-10
  • –emailapps.sas.upenn.edu2026-06-10
  • –ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu2026-06-10
  • –pennkey.upenn.edu2026-06-09
  • –my-pitchbook-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu2026-06-06

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

The University of Pennsylvania maintains a strong market position as a leading educational and research institution. Its business model focuses on delivering high-quality education, fostering innovation, and engaging with the community. The website targets a diverse audience including prospective and current students, faculty, researchers, and alumni. The presence of multiple official social media channels and comprehensive content indicates a mature digital marketing and communication strategy. The institution's long history and enterprise size are reflected in the website's scale and content depth. No suspicious or anomalous domains or partners were identified, reinforcing the legitimacy of the online presence.

Security posture

The website exhibits a solid security posture with HTTPS enabled and no exposed sensitive data in the HTML content. Use of third-party analytics is transparent and limited to reputable services. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security suggests room for enhancement. No vulnerability disclosure or incident response contacts are published, which could be improved to foster better security communication. Overall, the site aligns with good security practices expected of a major educational institution but could benefit from additional hardening and transparency measures.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  2. Add a visible cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply fully with privacy regulations.
  3. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  4. Provide clear incident response contact information for security issues.
  5. Regularly review and audit third-party scripts and analytics for privacy and security compliance.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
University of Pennsylvania
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of Pennsylvania
Description
An Ivy League university providing undergraduate, graduate, and professional education, research, and community engagement.
Key services
Undergraduate and graduate education, Research and innovation, Community involvement, Athletics and recreation, Online learning
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Vimeo video embedding, Google Fonts
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries
  • Secure forms with minimal data collection

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

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 and multimedia
  2. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected
  3. Comprehensive navigation with multiple sections and submenus
  4. Strong presence of official university branding and logos
  5. Multiple social media links to official university accounts
  6. Privacy and nondiscrimination policies clearly stated
  7. No contact forms collecting sensitive personal data detected
  8. Use of modern web technologies and CMS (Drupal 10)
  9. Embedded videos and images enhance content engagement
  10. No suspicious or malicious content found
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS, ensuring maintainability and security updates. Integration with Google Analytics and Tag Manager supports data-driven insights. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA roles. Performance is moderate, with embedded videos and rich media content that may impact load times but enhance user experience. The technical implementation is professional and aligns with best practices for large institutional websites. Opportunities exist to improve security headers and cookie consent mechanisms to enhance compliance and protection.
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. 74/100Medium28 findingsView report
  2. 74/100Medium29 findingsView report
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