Web Security Assessment of Higher Education Institutions in the United States (2023)

This repository contains a dataset resulting from a cybersecurity investigation conducted on the websites of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the United States [1]. The purpose of this research is to assess the state of web security across educational institutions. The data is being shared to contribute to open science and public knowledge [2]. The data collection took place on March 1, 2023.

The repository includes:

• Raw Data – The unprocessed results obtained from scanning HEI websites (The files are available in the raw folder in this repository).
• Aggregated Data – Analyzed results, providing insights into security implementations based on the type of institution (public or private), and regional analysis by state. These files are available in the root directory of this repository.

Methodology

1. Data Source: The list of higher education institutions was sourced from an external dataset [3].
2. Security Scanning: A web security scanner [4] was used to evaluate key parameters such as:

• DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions);
• HTTPS implementation;
• Security headers;

3. Data Aggregation: The raw results were processed through an analyzer [5], consolidating the data to provide insights by state and institution type.
4. Resulting Files: The aggregated analysis files are available in the root directory of this repository.

Usage

This data is available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license and can be used for any purpose, including academic research purposes. We encourage the sharing of knowledge and the advancement of research in this field by adhering to open science principles [2].

If you use this data in your research, please cite the source and include a link to this repository. To properly attribute this data, please use the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14541549

Contribuitions

If you have any updates or corrections to the data, please feel free to open a pull request or contact us directly. Let's work together to keep this data accurate and up-to-date.

Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), within the project "Cybers SeC IP" (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000044). This study was also developed as part of the Master in Cybersecurity Program at the Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Portugal.

References

1. Pending.
2. S. Bezjak, A. Clyburne-Sherin, P. Conzett, P. Fernandes, E. Görögh, K. Helbig, B. Kramer, I. Labastida, K. Niemeyer, F. Psomopoulos, T. Ross-Hellauer, R. Schneider, J. Tennant, E. Verbakel, H. Brinken, and L. Heller, Open Science Training Handbook. Zenodo, Apr. 2018. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1212496
3. Higher-Education-Institutions-in-the-United-States-of-America-Dataset. Available: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7614862
4. WebSecureScout. Available: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8341875
5. WebSecureScout-Analyzer. Available: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7670956