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Security report for usf.edu

University of South Florida · Education · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The University of South Florida (USF) is a prominent public research university serving multiple campuses in Florida, including Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota-Manatee. The website reflects a comprehensive academic institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs, research initiatives, campus life resources, and athletics. USF holds a strong market position as a leading research university with membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU), highlighting its research impact and academic excellence. The target audience includes prospective and current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the broader community. Technically, the website employs a mature technology stack including jQuery, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, YouTube API, Crazy Egg, Microsoft Clarity, and Siteimprove Analytics. The CMS platform is OmniUpdate, commonly used in higher education. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, though performance is moderate. The design is professional and consistent with strong branding. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and avoids exposing sensitive data. However, no explicit security headers were detected, and there is no visible cookie consent mechanism, which may impact GDPR compliance. Incident response and vulnerability disclosure information are not present, representing areas for improvement. The WHOIS data is unavailable publicly due to .edu domain restrictions but the domain is consistent with the university's identity and legitimacy. Overall, USF's website is a high-quality, trustworthy digital presence for a major educational institution. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, implementing cookie consent for privacy compliance, and publishing security policies and incident response contacts to strengthen trust and compliance.

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

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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • 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 usf.edu

This scan found 20 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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Full report

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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
67
Security headers
15
Email security
100
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
70

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 usf.edu, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
28,670
Employees
386
Customers
9,476
Third parties
18,808
Weak passwords
7%

Latest record dated 2026-06-18 · 250 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 usf.edu.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –netconnect.usf.edu2026-06-18
  • –campusrecshop.usf.edu2026-06-16
  • –jira.usf.edu2026-06-16
  • –mychart.health.usf.edu2026-06-16
  • –mhb-dhcp.net.usf.edu2026-06-14

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

USF operates as a large public university with a focus on education, research, and community engagement. Its business model centers on providing academic programs, research opportunities, and student services. The university benefits from a strong brand and market position, supported by AAU membership and extensive academic offerings. Revenue streams likely include tuition, research grants, donations, and state funding. The website indicates a well-established partnership ecosystem including athletics, health sciences, and alumni relations. Growth indicators include expanded risk management programs and high rankings in value and patents. The university targets a broad audience from students to community stakeholders, emphasizing innovation and student success.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a solid security posture with mandatory HTTPS and no visible exposure of sensitive data. The use of multiple analytics and tracking services is balanced with privacy considerations, though the absence of a cookie consent mechanism and security headers suggests room for improvement. No vulnerabilities or malicious content were detected. The lack of published incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies limits transparency. Overall, the security maturity is moderate to good, appropriate for a public university, but could be enhanced by adopting additional security best practices and compliance measures.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Deploy a cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations, improving user trust and legal compliance.
  3. Publish clear incident response and vulnerability disclosure policies including contact channels to foster transparency and security culture.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and analytics tools to mitigate risks from external dependencies.
  5. Enhance privacy compliance by appointing and publishing Data Protection Officer contact information and data retention policies.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
University of South Florida
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
University of South Florida
Description
The University of South Florida (USF) is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success serving Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee.
Key services
Undergraduate and graduate education, Research and innovation, Campus life and student services, Athletics, Continuing education
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.4.1, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, YouTube Player API, Crazy Egg, Microsoft Clarity, Siteimprove Analytics
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with proper input fields

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Siteimprove Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Crazy Egg
Tracking pixels
Microsoft Clarity, Siteimprove Analytics
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally maintained university site with comprehensive academic and campus information.
  2. No signs of malicious content or phishing.
  3. Uses multiple analytics and tracking services for user behavior insights.
  4. No explicit cookie consent mechanism detected, which may be a GDPR compliance gap.
  5. WHOIS data is unavailable publicly due to .edu domain policies.
  6. Strong branding consistency and trust signals present.
  7. No security headers detected in provided data; recommend adding for enhanced security.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a stable and widely used technology stack with jQuery and multiple analytics platforms integrated. The CMS is OmniUpdate, tailored for educational institutions. The site loads with moderate performance and is mobile optimized with good accessibility features. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags and structured navigation. However, the absence of detected security headers and cookie consent mechanisms indicates technical debt in security and privacy compliance. The site could benefit from performance optimizations and modernization of some legacy scripts to improve speed and maintainability.
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. 67/100Medium26 findingsView report
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