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Security report for bestawards.co.nz

Designers Institute of New Zealand · Other · New Zealand

Medium risk. 8 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

55/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Best Awards website is a well-established platform managed by the Designers Institute of New Zealand, showcasing a comprehensive range of design awards across multiple disciplines. It serves design professionals and organizations in New Zealand, providing entry management, award showcases, and sponsorship opportunities. The domain is mature, dating back to 1999, supporting the credibility of the business. Technically, the site uses modern JavaScript frameworks, likely React, and hosts media assets on AWS S3, indicating a contemporary digital infrastructure. However, the site lacks explicit privacy and cookie policies, security headers, and incident response information, which are areas for improvement. The security posture is adequate with HTTPS enabled but could be enhanced by enabling DNSSEC and adding security headers. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and safe for general audiences, with moderate tracking via Google Analytics and Tag Manager.

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

8 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 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

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

Keep watching bestawards.co.nz

This scan found 30 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
62
Security headers
15
Email security
55
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
55

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 Designers Institute of New Zealand positions itself as a key player in the New Zealand design awards market, leveraging a long-standing domain and partnerships with sponsors and judges. The business model revolves around event organization, sponsorship, and community engagement within the design sector. The website targets design professionals and agencies, providing detailed award categories and entries, which supports a strong market presence. The use of external partners and sponsors indicates a healthy ecosystem. However, the absence of direct contact information and privacy compliance details may limit user trust and regulatory compliance.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS, ensuring encrypted communications, but lacks DNSSEC, which could improve DNS security. No security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options were detected, which are recommended to mitigate common web vulnerabilities. There is no visible vulnerability disclosure or incident response information, which is a gap in security transparency. The use of modern JavaScript frameworks and external tracking services like Google Analytics introduces potential attack surfaces but no immediate vulnerabilities were identified. Overall, the security posture is moderate but could be significantly improved with standard best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security.
  2. Implement standard security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear consent mechanisms to improve GDPR compliance.
  4. Add a vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact information to increase security transparency.
  5. Consider adding explicit contact information such as company emails and phone numbers to improve business credibility and user trust.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Designers Institute of New Zealand
Description
The website represents the Best Design Awards organized by the Designers Institute of New Zealand, showcasing design awards across multiple disciplines including animation, digital, film, graphic, product, spatial, and more. It features entries, judges, sponsors, and award winners.
Key services
Design awards entry management, Showcasing award winners, Providing information on categories, rules, and judging, Sponsorship and partnership opportunities
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, React (implied by chunked JS files and runtime), Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, AWS S3 (for media hosting)
Frameworks
React
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • No DNSSEC (not enabled)
  • Domain status OK

Analytics and tracking

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

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 design awards platform for New Zealand.
  2. Content is rich with detailed award entries and categories.
  3. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found.
  4. Uses modern JavaScript frameworks and AWS S3 for media.
  5. No security headers detected; DNSSEC not enabled.
  6. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in content.
  7. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information present.
  8. Multiple sponsor and partner domains linked.
  9. Google Analytics and Tag Manager used for tracking.
  10. No WAF or blocking detected; site fully accessible.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using modern JavaScript technologies, likely React, with chunked JavaScript files and runtime scripts. Media assets are hosted on AWS S3, indicating scalable and reliable hosting for static content. Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are used for user tracking and analytics. The site is mobile optimized and has good SEO practices with proper meta tags and Open Graph tags. However, accessibility features appear basic and could be enhanced. Performance is moderate, with asynchronous loading of analytics scripts. No CMS was explicitly detected. The domain registrar is Crazy Domains, a known provider, and the domain is mature and stable.
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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