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Security report for africa.com

Africa.com · Media · South Africa

High risk. 8 critical or high findings in Network security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

49/100

Risk levelHigh

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

Africa.com is a well-established online media platform founded in 1994, providing comprehensive news and insights focused on Africa. It covers a broad range of topics including business, innovation, politics, culture, and society, targeting a general audience interested in African affairs. The website positions itself as a leading news hub with a consistent brand and professional content quality. Technically, the site is built on WordPress using Elementor, leveraging modern web technologies and integrating Google Analytics and Tag Manager for tracking. The site is mobile optimized with good SEO practices but lacks explicit privacy and cookie policies. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS and domain transfer protections, but could be improved with DNSSEC and security headers. WHOIS data is transparent and consistent with the business claims, supporting legitimacy. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professionally maintained but should enhance privacy compliance and security transparency.

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

8 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Network security

    Services reachable from the internet are the first thing attackers probe. Anything open that does not need to be should be closed.

    • Critical

      Critical Service Exposed: MySQL

      Port 3306 (MySQL) is publicly accessible - MySQL - Database server

      What to do: Immediately restrict access to MySQL using firewall or VPN

      • NIS2 21(2)(e)
      • IR 2024/2690 6.7.2(f): Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 6.7.2(f): Network security
      • NIST CM-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-7: Least Functionality
      • NIST SC-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-7: Boundary Protection

  2. 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';…

  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

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

Keep watching africa.com

This scan found 25 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
72
Security headers
25
Email security
75
DNS health
75
Network security
0
GDPR outside view
58
Average
51
After the cap
49

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 · found on this site
  • 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 africa.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
2,335
Employees
8
Customers
2,108
Third parties
219
Weak passwords
0%

Latest record dated 2026-05-20 · 62 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 africa.com.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –highachievers.africa.com2026-05-20
  • –highachievers.africa.com2026-05-19
  • –mail.newhorizon.africa.com2026-05-11
  • –mail.newhorizon.africa.com2026-05-03
  • –www.highachievers.africa.com2025-08-20

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)

Brand lookalikes

Add-on

Domains that imitate africa.com and could be used for phishing or spoofed email, tracked in OffSeq Breach.

Tracked
2
Registered
2
Resolving
2
High or critical
0

Last checked 2026-06-19

Masked preview

  • af••••.com.comLowvarious
  • af••••.comafrica.comLowvarious

See the full lookalike list

A one-off add-on that lists up to 20 of the highest-risk lookalikes of africa.com with registration, mail-server, certificate and DNS signals.

Select it in the checkout above.

Lookalike data refreshes continuously. Monitoring on Breach alerts you when a variant is registered, gains a mail server or starts serving HTTPS.

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

Africa.com operates in the media sector, focusing on African news and insights. Its business model revolves around content publishing and possibly advertising revenue. The site targets a broad audience interested in African developments, including business professionals, policymakers, and the general public. The presence of partner domains related to AI technology, digital infrastructure, and events suggests a diversified ecosystem. The long domain age and consistent registrant data indicate a stable market presence. However, the absence of explicit privacy and security policies may impact user trust and regulatory compliance. The site’s integration with social media platforms and use of modern CMS tools reflect a mature digital strategy.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and has domain status set to clientTransferProhibited, which protects against unauthorized domain transfers. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, which is a missed opportunity to secure DNS queries. No security headers were detected in the provided data, which could expose the site to certain web-based attacks. There is no public security policy or incident response information, limiting transparency. The use of third-party scripts like Google Analytics and Tag Manager introduces tracking but no known vulnerabilities were identified. Overall, the security posture is moderate but could be enhanced by implementing DNSSEC, security headers, and publishing security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement and publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism to improve GDPR compliance.
  3. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection to harden the website against common attacks.
  4. Publish a security policy and incident response plan to increase transparency and user trust.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and plugins for vulnerabilities and update them promptly.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Africa.com
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Africa.com
Description
AFRICA.COM delivers up-to-the-minute coverage of breaking news and developments across Africa, including fast-tracked updates on political, economic, cultural, and educational shifts. It shares top news and stories from across Africa, covering business, innovation, politics, and culture.
Key services
News coverage, Business and innovation stories, Cultural and societal insights, Opinion and feature articles
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

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

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

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 news and insights platform focused on Africa.
  2. Content is well structured with clear navigation and multiple topical categories.
  3. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found in provided content.
  4. Uses modern web technologies and CMS (WordPress with Elementor).
  5. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  6. WHOIS data is transparent and consistent with business claims.
  7. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
  8. Social media presence is established with Facebook and Twitter links.
  9. No phone numbers or physical addresses explicitly found in provided content.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress with the Elementor page builder, indicating a flexible and widely supported CMS infrastructure. It uses modern front-end libraries including jQuery and Font Awesome for UI elements. Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics are integrated for analytics and marketing purposes. The site loads images with lazy loading and uses responsive design techniques for mobile optimization. Performance is moderate, with some caching and optimization plugins evident. The absence of DNSSEC and security headers suggests technical debt in security hardening. The site’s SEO is supported by proper meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data, enhancing search engine visibility and social media sharing.
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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