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Security report for caritas.org

Caritas Internationalis · Non-profit · United States

High risk. 9 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

43/100

Risk levelHigh

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

Caritas Internationalis operates as a global confederation of Catholic relief and development agencies, focusing on humanitarian aid, poverty alleviation, and social justice. The organization maintains a strong market position as a leading non-profit with extensive international reach and a clear mission inspired by the Gospel. Their website reflects a professional and content-rich platform targeting donors, volunteers, and the global Catholic community. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern plugins and integrations such as Stripe for donations and Cloudflare for CDN services. However, a critical security gap exists due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support, exposing users to potential risks. Privacy compliance is well addressed with clear policies and cookie consent mechanisms. Overall, the site demonstrates high business credibility but requires urgent security improvements to protect user data and maintain trust.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of caritas.org. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
0/ 100 · Critical
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

9 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

  2. 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

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. 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';…

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Keep watching caritas.org

This scan found 23 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
0
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
0
Average
43

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

Caritas Internationalis leverages its long-established domain and global network to deliver humanitarian services across multiple continents. Their business model is donation-driven, supported by online giving forms and campaigns such as 'Turn Debt Into Hope.' The organization benefits from strong branding consistency and trust signals including official Catholic Church affiliation and active social media engagement. Their partnership ecosystem includes campaign microsites and community platforms under the caritas.org domain. The absence of direct contact emails or phone numbers on the site suggests a preference for controlled communication via forms, which may streamline donor interactions but could limit direct support accessibility.

Security posture

The website's security posture is currently weak due to the lack of HTTPS and valid SSL/TLS certificates, which is a critical vulnerability for any site handling donations and personal data. The absence of HSTS, OCSP stapling, and session resumption further weakens the security configuration. While Cloudflare is used as a CDN, no WAF challenge or blocking is detected, indicating no active protection against automated attacks at the application layer. Privacy policies and cookie consent are implemented, supporting GDPR compliance, but no incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies are evident. Immediate remediation of SSL issues and enhancement of security headers are recommended to improve the overall security maturity.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Enable HSTS with includeSubDomains and preload to enforce secure connections.
  3. Implement OCSP stapling and session resumption to improve SSL performance and security.
  4. Publish a DMARC record to protect against email spoofing and phishing.
  5. Develop and publish a security policy and incident response contact information.
  6. Regularly audit and update all plugins and third-party libraries to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  7. Consider adding explicit terms of service and vulnerability disclosure pages to enhance transparency.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a mature WordPress platform with Elementor for page building and Yoast SEO for optimization. Donation processing is handled via the GiveWP plugin integrated with Stripe and Braintree payment gateways. The site uses Cloudflare for DNS and CDN services, improving global availability and some security aspects. Performance is moderate with room for improvement, especially given the lack of SSL which can affect browser loading behavior. Mobile optimization is good, and SEO practices are well implemented with proper meta tags and structured data. Accessibility features are basic but present. The site would benefit from modernizing its SSL configuration and enhancing security headers to reduce technical risks.
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. 65/100 +2Medium31 findingsView report
  2. 63/100Medium29 findingsView report
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