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Security report for aarc.org

American Association for Respiratory Care · Healthcare · United States

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

59/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) operates a comprehensive professional association website focused on respiratory care professionals, students, and educators. The site provides membership services, educational resources, advocacy information, events, and career support, positioning itself as a key resource in the respiratory healthcare sector. The website is well-structured, professionally designed, and optimized for mobile devices, reflecting a mature digital presence. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern plugins and tracking technologies, including SAML SSO for authentication and multiple analytics and advertising integrations. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities, though security headers could be improved. Privacy compliance is limited due to missing explicit privacy and cookie policies in the provided content. WHOIS data is unavailable or malformed, which slightly reduces domain trustworthiness, but the professional nature of the site and its content mitigate this concern. Overall, the site scores well in content quality, technical implementation, and security, with room for improvement in privacy compliance and transparency.

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

7 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 aarc.org

This scan found 29 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
42
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
59

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

AARC is positioned as a large, important entity in the healthcare and education sectors, serving respiratory therapists and related professionals primarily in the United States. Its business model centers on membership fees, educational offerings, advocacy, and event hosting. The site links to several partner domains including its journal, museum, career center, and community platform, indicating a broad ecosystem. The presence of multiple social media channels and professional branding supports strong market positioning. The lack of visible direct contact information and incomplete WHOIS data suggest areas for enhanced transparency. The organization appears stable with a consistent brand and good content quality, targeting healthcare professionals and students.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a good security posture with HTTPS enabled and use of secure authentication plugins like MiniOrange SAML SSO. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options is a gap. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. The site uses multiple third-party tracking and advertising scripts, which may increase the attack surface and privacy risks. There is no visible security policy or incident response information, which could improve user trust and preparedness. Overall, the security maturity is moderate to good but could benefit from enhanced header policies and transparency.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policy pages with clear GDPR compliance statements.
  2. Add and enforce security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  3. Publish a security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and trust.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and plugins for vulnerabilities and privacy risks.
  5. Improve accessibility features to enhance compliance and user experience.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
American Association for Respiratory Care
Description
The American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) is a professional association dedicated to respiratory care professionals. It provides membership services, education, advocacy, resources, events, and career support for respiratory therapists and related professionals.
Key services
Membership services, Educational programs and resources, Advocacy and government affairs, Events and conferences, Career center and job listings, Publications and news
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, jQuery, FontAwesome, MiniOrange SAML Single Sign-On, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Informz tracking, Adzerk ads
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of SAML Single Sign-On plugin for authentication
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Informz
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Adzerk, Multiview
Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Google Analytics (via GTM), Informz
Marketing tools
Informz
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional association site for respiratory care professionals.
  2. Content is rich and well-structured with multiple sections for membership, education, advocacy, and events.
  3. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found in the provided HTML snippet.
  4. Use of multiple third-party tracking and advertising scripts.
  5. No explicit privacy or cookie policy pages detected in the provided content.
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  7. WHOIS data is unavailable or malformed, limiting domain trust analysis.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with a modern tech stack including Yoast SEO, jQuery, FontAwesome, and MiniOrange SAML Single Sign-On for authentication. It integrates multiple analytics and advertising services such as Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Informz, and Adzerk ads. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and good SEO metadata including Open Graph and JSON-LD structured data. Performance is moderate, with potential improvements in loading speed and accessibility. The use of multiple third-party scripts requires ongoing security and privacy monitoring to mitigate risks.
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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