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Security report for bis.org

Bank for International Settlements · Finance · Switzerland

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is a premier international financial institution dedicated to promoting global monetary and financial stability through cooperation among central banks and financial authorities. The website reflects its authoritative market position by offering extensive research, statistical data, and innovation initiatives targeted at central banks, policymakers, and financial supervisors worldwide. The BIS operates as a global hub for banking supervision, financial stability, and technological innovation in finance, supported by a mature and enterprise-scale digital presence. Technically, the website employs modern web technologies including React components, jQuery, and Matomo analytics for privacy-conscious user tracking. The site is well-structured, mobile-optimized, and accessible, with comprehensive metadata and structured data enhancing SEO and interoperability. While the WHOIS data is unavailable due to privacy or registry limitations, the website's professional branding and consistent domain usage strongly support its legitimacy. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and avoids exposing sensitive data, though explicit security headers and incident response disclosures are absent. The use of Matomo analytics aligns with privacy best practices, and cookie and privacy policies are clearly presented with consent mechanisms. Overall, the security posture is solid but could be enhanced by publishing dedicated security policies and vulnerability disclosure programs. The overall risk assessment is low, with no signs of malicious activity or content safety concerns. Strategic recommendations include improving security header implementation, publishing incident response and vulnerability disclosure information, and enhancing transparency around data protection officers and security policies to further strengthen trust and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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

4 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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.

    • Critical

      Unable to retrieve SSL certificate

      Could not establish secure connection to retrieve certificate information

      What to do: Check if the server is accessible and SSL/TLS is properly configured

  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 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 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 bis.org

This scan found 15 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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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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
0
Security headers
50
Email security
80
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
65

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

BIS holds a unique position as an essential international financial institution serving central banks and financial regulators globally. Its business model revolves around providing research, policy coordination, banking services, and innovation facilitation. The institution's revenue streams likely derive from banking services and membership contributions. The target customers are central banks, financial supervisors, and policymakers. The website's content and structure indicate a mature organization with a global footprint and a strong partnership ecosystem. The BIS Innovation Hub and various committees highlight its role in shaping financial regulation and technology adoption. The absence of direct commercial advertising and the focus on public goods and policy research underscore its non-profit, governance-oriented nature.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, no visible sensitive data leaks, and use of privacy-respecting analytics (Matomo). However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options represents an area for improvement. No incident response or security policy pages were found, which could limit transparency and preparedness perception. The lack of a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file suggests an opportunity to enhance security culture and community engagement. Overall, the site is secure but could benefit from adopting additional security best practices and publicizing its security governance framework.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including CSP, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options to mitigate common web vulnerabilities.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to improve transparency and readiness.
  3. Establish and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program and security.txt file to engage with security researchers.
  4. Enhance visibility of data protection officer contact details and GDPR compliance measures.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and analytics configurations to maintain security and privacy standards.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Bank for International Settlements
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Bank for International Settlements
Description
Promoting global monetary and financial stability through international cooperation
Key services
Research and publications, Banking services for central banks, Statistical data provision, Innovation hub for financial technology, Committees and policy coordination
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery, React (data-react-class attributes), Matomo analytics, Modernizr, CSS3, HTML5
Frameworks
React (partial usage for UI components)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced (implied by canonical and resource URLs)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is rich, well-structured, and professionally presented.
  3. Strong presence of official social media and structured data.
  4. No contact emails explicitly found in HTML but contact page exists.
  5. No phone numbers explicitly found in HTML content.
  6. No explicit security policy or incident response pages found.
  7. WHOIS data is unavailable due to malformed WHOIS response, indicating privacy protection or registry limitations.
  8. Use of Matomo analytics indicates privacy-conscious tracking.
  9. No advertising or affiliate marketing detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using a combination of modern web technologies including React for UI components, jQuery for DOM manipulation, and Matomo for analytics. The HTML is well-structured with comprehensive meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data supporting SEO and social media integration. CSS is modular and supports print and screen media. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible with ARIA landmarks and skip navigation links. Performance is moderate, with asynchronous loading of analytics scripts and optimized images. No CMS is explicitly detected, suggesting a custom or proprietary content management system. Hosting details are not disclosed. The technical stack is robust and supports the institution's global digital presence effectively.
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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