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Security report for cern.ch

CERN · Technology · Switzerland

High risk. 6 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

49/100

Risk levelHigh

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

CERN is a globally recognized intergovernmental organization specializing in fundamental physics research, operating the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider. The website serves a diverse audience including scientists, educators, students, and the general public, providing rich content on physics, accelerators, experiments, and educational resources. The site is professionally designed with excellent content quality and clear navigation, powered by Drupal 10 and modern web technologies. However, the security posture is weakened by the absence of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols, which are critical for secure communications. Privacy and cookie policies are present and GDPR compliant, reflecting good privacy practices. Overall, CERN's website demonstrates high business credibility and trustworthiness but requires urgent improvements in SSL/TLS configuration to enhance security.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of cern.ch. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
18/ 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

6 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

    • 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

  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 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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  • TLS certificates and expiry
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  • Security headers
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  • 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
40
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
18
Average
49

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

CERN maintains a strong market position as a leading fundamental physics research center with a non-profit business model focused on scientific discovery and knowledge dissemination. The website supports this mission with extensive resources, news, events, and community engagement. The organization leverages a modern technology stack and maintains active social media channels to extend its reach. The lack of explicit terms of service and security policy pages suggests areas for improvement in transparency. The domain registration data aligns well with CERN's identity, reinforcing legitimacy. The website's performance metrics are not provided but inferred to be moderate to slow, indicating potential optimization opportunities.

Security posture

The website's security posture is compromised by the lack of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols, exposing users to potential risks such as data interception. While some security headers like X-Content-Type-Options and X-Frame-Options are present, the absence of HSTS and OCSP stapling reduces protection against certain attacks. No known vulnerabilities or malware indicators were detected. The site uses secure cookie flags appropriately. Incident response and vulnerability disclosure information are not found, which could hinder timely security issue management. Overall, the security maturity is low and requires immediate attention to SSL/TLS configuration and enhanced security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS and protect user data.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable deprecated versions.
  3. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload directives.
  4. Enable OCSP stapling to improve certificate revocation checking performance and security.
  5. Publish clear security policies and vulnerability disclosure guidelines to enhance transparency and incident response readiness.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10 CMS with a robust front-end using Bootstrap 3, jQuery, and various JavaScript libraries for enhanced user experience. The server runs nginx. The site includes Matomo analytics for privacy-conscious tracking and MathJax for scientific content rendering. Despite a modern tech stack, the SSL/TLS configuration is severely lacking, with no valid certificate and no TLS protocols enabled, which is a critical risk. Performance data is missing, but the site appears content-rich and mobile-optimized. Accessibility and SEO are well addressed with proper meta tags and ARIA roles. Technical debt is minimal but SSL/TLS issues represent a major risk to business operations and user trust.
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. 73/100 +2Medium29 findingsView report
  2. 71/100Medium29 findingsView report
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