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Security report for awesomefoundation.org

The Awesome Foundation · Non-profit · N/a

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

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Awesome Foundation is a well-established global non-profit organization founded in 2009, dedicated to providing $1,000 micro-grants to creative and innovative projects worldwide through autonomous chapters. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand with a clear mission and a broad international presence. Technically, the site uses modern web technologies including Turbo Rails, StimulusJS, and is hosted on a Cloudfront CDN, ensuring good performance and mobile optimization. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS enforced, but lacks visible security headers and explicit privacy or cookie policies, which are areas for improvement. The absence of WHOIS data due to privacy protection is typical for non-profits and does not detract from the site's legitimacy. Overall, the site is trustworthy and serves its community effectively, though enhancing privacy compliance and security transparency would strengthen its position.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
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 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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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 awesomefoundation.org

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.

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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
77
Security headers
50
Email security
85
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
71

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 Awesome Foundation operates a unique non-profit business model focused on community-driven micro-grants. Its market position is strong within the non-profit sector, with 69 chapters across 10 countries and over 7,488 projects funded, indicating significant reach and impact. The foundation targets individuals and groups with innovative ideas, providing funding without strings attached. Revenue streams are likely based on donations from micro-trustees within chapters. The organization maintains a robust partnership ecosystem through its chapters but does not publicly list subsidiaries or parent companies. Growth indicators include expanding chapters and funded projects. The website supports this ecosystem with clear navigation and social media engagement, though direct contact details are limited on the homepage.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enabled and no visible sensitive data exposure. However, the lack of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and absence of a published vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file indicate gaps in security best practices. No explicit incident response or security policy information is provided, which may impact readiness for security events. Privacy compliance is weak due to missing privacy and cookie policies and lack of consent mechanisms. The site does not expose known vulnerabilities or use outdated libraries visibly. Overall, the security posture is functional but could benefit from enhanced transparency and compliance measures.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with user consent mechanisms to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Add standard security headers (CSP, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options) to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  3. Provide clear contact information for security incidents and consider publishing a vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file.
  4. Enhance accessibility features to meet compliance standards and improve user experience for all visitors.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking tools to minimize privacy risks and improve transparency.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The Awesome Foundation
Description
The Awesome Foundation is a worldwide community devoted to forwarding the interest of awesome in the universe by distributing $1,000 grants, no strings attached, to projects and their creators. It operates through autonomous chapters pooling money from micro-trustees to fund projects.
Key services
Micro-grants of $1,000 to fund creative and innovative projects
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, Google Analytics, New Relic Browser Agent, Typekit Fonts, Font Awesome
Frameworks
Turbo Rails, StimulusJS
Performance
fast
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, New Relic Browser Agent
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
New Relic Browser Agent
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages found on the homepage or main navigation.
  3. No direct contact emails or phone numbers visible on the homepage; contact likely via About Us page.
  4. Strong social media presence with official Twitter and Facebook links.
  5. Uses modern web technologies and CDN for performance.
  6. No visible security headers in HTML source; potential area for improvement.
  7. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found.
  8. Content is safe and appropriate for general audiences.
  9. WHOIS data is unavailable, likely due to privacy protection or query failure.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using modern JavaScript frameworks including Turbo Rails and StimulusJS, leveraging Cloudfront CDN for content delivery and Typekit for fonts. It integrates Google Analytics and New Relic for performance monitoring and user analytics. The site loads quickly and is mobile optimized with a clean, consistent design. However, there is no detected CMS, suggesting a custom or framework-based build. The absence of visible security headers and privacy compliance features indicates technical debt in security and compliance areas. Opportunities exist to modernize privacy management and enhance security configurations to align with best practices.
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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