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Security report for caritas.org

Caritas · Non-profit · N/a

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Caritas is a globally recognized confederation of over 160 Catholic relief and development agencies dedicated to ending poverty, promoting justice, and restoring dignity. The organization operates worldwide, providing humanitarian aid, disaster relief, development programs, and advocacy. Their website reflects a mature digital presence with a professional design, clear navigation, and multilingual support. The donation system is integrated securely using Stripe, ensuring safe financial transactions. The site is built on WordPress with popular plugins for SEO, content management, and user engagement, indicating a modern and maintainable technical infrastructure. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and secure payment processing, though some security headers could be improved. Privacy and cookie policies are present and GDPR compliant, reflecting good privacy practices. The WHOIS data is privacy protected, which is typical for large NGOs, and does not raise immediate concerns. Overall, Caritas demonstrates a trustworthy and professional online presence aligned with its humanitarian mission.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
65/ 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

6 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 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 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
65
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
65
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

Caritas holds a strong market position as a leading Catholic humanitarian organization with a broad global footprint. Its business model is non-profit, relying on donations and partnerships to fund its activities. The website targets donors, volunteers, and stakeholders interested in humanitarian aid and development. The organization leverages partnerships with payment processors like Stripe and uses social media channels to extend its reach. The content quality and branding consistency support its credibility and trustworthiness. Growth indicators include active campaigns for current crises and a comprehensive resource library. The absence of direct contact emails or phone numbers on the homepage suggests a focus on digital engagement and centralized contact forms.

Security posture

The website exhibits a solid security posture with HTTPS enforced and integration of Google reCAPTCHA on forms to prevent spam. Payment processing is securely handled via Stripe, a reputable payment gateway. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options suggests room for improvement. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. The lack of a public incident response or vulnerability disclosure policy is a gap that could be addressed to enhance transparency and readiness. Overall, the security measures are appropriate for a non-profit organization handling donations but could be strengthened to mitigate emerging threats.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Publish a clear incident response and vulnerability disclosure policy to improve transparency and encourage responsible reporting of security issues.
  3. Regularly update WordPress core, themes, and plugins to the latest versions to reduce risk from known vulnerabilities.
  4. Enhance accessibility features to improve usability for all users, including those with disabilities.
  5. Consider publishing more detailed business contact information to increase trust and facilitate communication.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Caritas
Description
Caritas means 'love'. We are a family of 162 national Catholic relief and development agencies working across the world. Our work is inspired by the Gospel.
Key services
Humanitarian aid, Development projects, Disaster relief, Advocacy, Migration and human trafficking support, Health and HIV programs
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 5.5.17, Yoast SEO plugin, Elementor page builder, Give donation plugin, Slider Revolution, jQuery, Google Analytics, Stripe payment gateway, AddThis sharing tools
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA on forms
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure payment integration via Stripe

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
AddThis
Marketing tools
AddThis social sharing
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenge.
  2. Content is rich, professionally presented, and focused on humanitarian aid.
  3. Strong use of WordPress ecosystem with popular plugins for SEO, donations, and page building.
  4. Secure payment processing integrated via Stripe.
  5. Privacy and cookie policies are present and GDPR compliant.
  6. No direct company contact emails or phone numbers found in the HTML content.
  7. No explicit security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy found.
  8. WHOIS data is not publicly available, indicating privacy protection.
  9. No suspicious or malicious domains linked.
  10. Social media presence includes Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress 5.5.17, utilizing Elementor for page building, Yoast SEO for search optimization, and Give plugin for donation management. It integrates Stripe for secure payment processing and uses Google Analytics and AddThis for tracking and social sharing. The site loads multiple CSS and JS assets from trusted CDNs and employs Google Fonts for typography. Performance is moderate, with room for optimization in loading speed and accessibility. The site is mobile responsive and SEO optimized with structured data (JSON-LD) for enhanced search engine visibility. Technical debt appears low, but updating to newer WordPress versions and plugins is advisable 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. 63/100 +20Medium29 findingsView report
  2. 43/100High31 findingsView report
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