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Security report for usp.br

Universidade de São Paulo · Education · Brazil

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

72/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Universidade de São Paulo (USP) is a leading public university in Brazil, providing comprehensive higher education, research, and cultural extension services. The website serves as an official portal offering detailed information about academic programs, research initiatives, institutional governance, and community engagement. USP holds a prominent market position as a major educational institution in Brazil, targeting students, researchers, and the broader academic community. Technically, the website is built on a modern WordPress CMS with Elementor page builder, integrating various plugins and Google services for analytics and performance. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization and SEO practices, though some accessibility features could be enhanced. Performance is moderate, with a well-structured and professional design. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and uses standard security practices, but lacks explicit security headers and a public incident response contact. Privacy compliance is addressed with a comprehensive LGPD (Brazilian data protection law) page, though no explicit cookie consent mechanism was detected. The WHOIS data aligns with the institution's profile, supporting legitimacy. Overall, the website is trustworthy, professional, and well-maintained, with recommendations to improve security headers, incident response transparency, and cookie consent to further enhance compliance and user trust.

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

5 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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

    • High

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google APIs

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

  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 usp.br

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.

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
80
Email security
80
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
72

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

USP operates as a public educational institution with a broad portfolio including undergraduate and graduate education, research, innovation, cultural activities, and inclusion programs. Its business model is non-commercial, focusing on public service and academic excellence. The university maintains a strong partnership ecosystem with various USP-related domains and services, enhancing its digital presence and service delivery. Growth indicators include active research output and extensive community engagement. The website reflects a mature digital strategy supporting USP's mission and outreach.

Security posture

The website exhibits a good security posture with HTTPS enabled and no visible exposure of sensitive data. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and lack of a published security.txt or incident response contacts indicate areas for improvement. The use of Google reCAPTCHA suggests mitigation against automated abuse. No vulnerable libraries or critical security issues were detected in the provided content. Enhancing security transparency and implementing additional headers would strengthen the security maturity.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce Content-Security-Policy and other security headers to mitigate XSS and clickjacking risks.
  2. Publish a security.txt file and provide clear incident response contact information to improve vulnerability disclosure and response.
  3. Add a visible cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and enhance user trust.
  4. Enhance accessibility features to meet WCAG standards for broader inclusivity.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and plugins to ensure no vulnerabilities or deprecated components are in use.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Universidade de São Paulo
Description
USP is a major public university in Brazil, linked to the Secretaria de Estado de Ensino Superior de São Paulo, offering undergraduate, graduate, research, cultural extension, and inclusion services.
Key services
Undergraduate education, Graduate education, Research and innovation, Cultural and extension activities, Inclusion programs
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 6.2, Elementor, Jetpack, Google Analytics, Font Awesome, jQuery
Frameworks
Elementor
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA (implied by scripts)

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Jetpack Stats
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Jetpack Stats
Marketing tools
Site Kit by Google
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a public university official site with comprehensive academic and institutional information.
  2. Content is rich, well-structured, and professionally presented.
  3. No signs of blocking or WAF interference.
  4. Security practices are good but could be improved with explicit headers and incident response info.
  5. Privacy policy and LGPD compliance page are present and comprehensive.
  6. No explicit cookie consent mechanism detected.
  7. Multiple social media channels are linked, enhancing trust and outreach.
  8. WHOIS data supports legitimacy but lacks detailed registrant info.
Technical notes

Notes

The website leverages WordPress 6.2 with Elementor for content management and layout, supported by Jetpack and various plugins for media, social sharing, and RSS feeds. Google Analytics and Tag Manager are integrated for traffic analysis. The site uses modern CSS and JavaScript libraries including Font Awesome and jQuery. Performance is moderate with some optimization opportunities. The hosting provider is not explicitly identified but the domain uses a Brazilian academic name server. The site is mobile responsive and SEO optimized with proper meta tags and Open Graph data. Technical debt appears low, but security header implementation is lacking.
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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