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Security report for wfu.edu

Wake Forest University · Education · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in DNS health, SSL/TLS and 2 other checks.

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Wake Forest University is a well-established private university located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, founded in 1834. The institution offers a broad range of academic programs across seven colleges and schools, serving a diverse student body. The website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive academic and campus life information, targeting prospective and current students, faculty, alumni, and families. The university positions itself as a leader in academic excellence and community engagement.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • High

      Weak SPF Policy

      SPF record has permissive policy allowing any server to send email

      What to do: Use -all or ~all qualifier for better email security

  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

  3. 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

  4. 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

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

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

Keep watching wfu.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.

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
64
Security headers
35
Email security
85
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
69

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 operates in the education sector with a focus on undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies. Its business model centers on tuition-based education, research, and community services. The website's extensive use of analytics and social media integration indicates a strategic approach to marketing and engagement. The institution maintains partnerships and subdomains for specialized schools and services, enhancing its ecosystem. The lack of visible contact details and privacy policies on the main page suggests areas for improvement in transparency and compliance.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and integrates multiple analytics and tracking tools, indicating a modern security baseline. However, explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options are not evident, which could expose the site to certain risks. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The absence of published security policies, incident response contacts, or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms limits the site's security maturity. Overall, the security posture is solid but could benefit from enhanced transparency and header implementation.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with user consent mechanisms to improve compliance.
  2. Add explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to strengthen security posture.
  3. Provide clear contact information for security, privacy, and general inquiries to enhance trust and responsiveness.
  4. Establish and publicize an incident response and vulnerability disclosure policy to demonstrate security readiness.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking tools to minimize privacy risks and ensure compliance with data protection regulations.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Wake Forest University
Description
Founded in 1834, Wake Forest University is a private university located in Winston-Salem, N.C. We are a vibrant and diverse academic community where our students study in one or more of the 45 majors and programs we offer within our seven colleges and schools.
Key services
Undergraduate education, Graduate education, Professional studies, Research, Campus life and student services
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Slick Carousel, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, TikTok Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Siteimprove Analytics, FontAwesome, Weather Icons
Frameworks
Foundation CSS
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google Tag Manager and analytics with privacy considerations

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, TikTok Analytics, LinkedIn Insight, Hotjar, Siteimprove Analytics, Pingdom
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
TikTok Pixel, LinkedIn Insight, Hotjar, Siteimprove Analytics, Pingdom
Marketing tools
TikTok Analytics, Hotjar
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 designed official university site
  2. Content is rich and relevant to education and campus life
  3. Multiple social media and official external links present
  4. No privacy or cookie policy pages detected in the provided content
  5. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found in the HTML content
  6. Use of multiple analytics and tracking scripts indicates extensive user tracking
  7. No security incident response or vulnerability disclosure information found
  8. No visible security headers explicitly declared in HTML
  9. WHOIS data unavailable, typical for .edu domains
  10. No WAF or blocking detected, full content accessible
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS using a modern tech stack including jQuery, Slick Carousel, and Foundation CSS framework. It leverages multiple third-party analytics and marketing tools such as Google Analytics, TikTok Pixel, LinkedIn Insight, Hotjar, and Siteimprove Analytics. Hosting appears to be on AWS infrastructure with CDN support for performance optimization. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and good accessibility features. SEO is well implemented with meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data. Performance is fast with lazy loading and prefetching techniques. Technical risks include reliance on multiple third-party scripts which require ongoing security monitoring.
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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