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Security report for architectural-review.com

The Architectural Review · Media · N/a

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

75/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Architectural Review is a well-established global architecture magazine with a strong online presence and a history dating back to 1896. The website offers a rich array of content including essays, building reviews, competitions, podcasts, and newsletters, targeting architects, designers, and enthusiasts of international design. The business model revolves around media publishing, subscriptions, and related merchandise sales through a partner store. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern plugins and integrates multiple analytics and advertising services, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and some security best practices, though explicit security policies and vulnerability disclosures are absent. Privacy compliance is basic, lacking visible privacy and cookie policies, which is an area for improvement. The WHOIS data is missing or inaccessible, which raises some concerns about domain registration transparency, though the website content and branding are professional and trustworthy. Overall, the site scores well on content quality and technical implementation but should enhance privacy and security transparency to improve trust and compliance.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of architectural-review.com. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
85/ 100 · Low
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

4 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 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 Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

  3. 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

  4. DNS health

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

    • High

      Potential Subdomain Takeover

      Subdomain staging.architectural-review.com points to unregistered service dxeiyfs8iine1.cloudfront.net

      What to do: Remove or fix CNAME record to prevent subdomain takeover

      • WSTG-CONF-10
      • NIS2 21(2)(i)
      • IR 2024/2690 12.4: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 12.4: Asset inventory
      • NIST CM-8: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-8: System Component Inventory

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

Keep watching architectural-review.com

This scan found 19 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
67
Security headers
65
Email security
75
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
85
Average
75

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 Architectural Review holds a strong market position as a leading architecture media publication with a legacy brand. Its competitive advantage lies in authoritative content, global reach, and diversified offerings including print and digital media, awards, and events. Revenue streams likely include subscriptions, advertising, and merchandise sales. The target customer segments are professionals and enthusiasts in architecture and design. The partnership with a dedicated store domain indicates an integrated commerce strategy. Growth indicators include active content updates and engagement via social media. The company operates in the media sector with a medium-sized digital footprint.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a good security maturity level with enforced HTTPS, use of CAPTCHA v3 for forms, and integration of consent mechanisms for cookies. However, the absence of explicit security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms indicates gaps in security governance and transparency. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the provided content. The extensive use of third-party tracking and advertising scripts requires ongoing monitoring to mitigate privacy risks. Compliance with GDPR is implied but not explicitly documented, which could pose regulatory risks. Incident response readiness and security culture indicators are not visible, suggesting room for improvement in these areas.

Recommendations

  1. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies clearly accessible on the website.
  2. Add explicit security and incident response policies including contact channels for abuse or security issues.
  3. Implement and publish a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability disclosure.
  4. Enhance security headers such as X-Frame-Options and Referrer-Policy for improved protection.
  5. Review and audit third-party scripts regularly to ensure no vulnerabilities or privacy violations.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The Architectural Review
Description
An online and print magazine about international design. Since 1896.
Key services
Publishing architectural critiques and essays, Magazine subscriptions, Competitions and awards, Newsletters, Podcasts, Online articles and archives
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 6.8.1, jQuery 3.7.1, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google AdSense, PixelYourSite, Slick Carousel, Yoast SEO plugin, LazyLoad JS, CrazyEgg, LinkedIn Insight Tag, GetSiteControl
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google Tag Manager and analytics with consent mechanisms
  • Captcha v3 enabled for forms
  • Cookie consent redirect if cookies disabled

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, CrazyEgg
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Google AdSense, Google DoubleClick, Google Ad Services
Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, CrazyEgg
Marketing tools
PixelYourSite, GetSiteControl
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional architecture magazine with rich content and multimedia.
  2. Uses WordPress CMS with modern plugins and SEO optimizations.
  3. Extensive use of third-party analytics and advertising scripts.
  4. No explicit privacy or cookie policy pages detected in the provided HTML.
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found in the HTML content.
  6. Social media presence is strong with verified official accounts linked.
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  8. WHOIS data is missing or not publicly available, which is unusual.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern WordPress CMS platform with up-to-date plugins and libraries including jQuery, Google Tag Manager, and various analytics and advertising tools. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and SEO practices implemented via Yoast SEO. The site uses lazy loading for images and asynchronous script loading to improve load times. Hosting appears to be managed by Emap with CDN support. Accessibility features are basic but present. Technical debt appears low, though continuous monitoring of third-party dependencies is recommended to maintain security and performance.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 75/100Medium27 findingsView report
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