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Security report for code.golf

Cloudflare, Inc · Technology · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

57/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Code Golf is an online platform dedicated to coding challenges focused on minimizing code length, appealing primarily to programmers and coding enthusiasts. The website offers a variety of coding problems categorized by themes such as sequences, mathematics, gaming, and art, fostering a niche community of developers interested in code golfing. The platform integrates community features such as Discord for advice and GitHub for source code transparency, positioning itself as a specialized educational and recreational coding site. Technically, the website employs modern web standards including HTML5, CSS3 with light and dark themes, and JavaScript ES modules. Hosting and domain registration are managed by Cloudflare, ensuring reliable performance and security infrastructure. The site is mobile-optimized and demonstrates good SEO practices with appropriate meta tags and Open Graph data. However, no CMS or major frameworks are detected, indicating a custom or lightweight implementation. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and has domain transfer protections in place. However, it lacks visible security headers and does not provide privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies, which are important for compliance and user trust. No contact information or incident response channels are provided, limiting transparency. The absence of a security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy suggests room for improvement in security communication. Overall, Code Golf presents a well-structured, content-rich platform with a strong technical foundation but requires enhancements in privacy compliance, security best practices, and user trust mechanisms to improve its security posture and regulatory adherence.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
50/ 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

7 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  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"

  3. 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

    • 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 code.golf

This scan found 20 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

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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
75
Security headers
60
Email security
40
DNS health
75
Network security
40
GDPR outside view
50
Average
57

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

Code Golf operates in the technology sector as a small-sized niche platform targeting programmers interested in code golfing challenges. Its business model revolves around gamified coding competitions and community engagement, leveraging open source and social platforms like GitHub and Discord. The platform's market position is specialized, catering to a dedicated audience rather than mass-market users. Revenue streams are not explicit but likely indirect through community support or sponsorships. The partnership ecosystem includes Cloudflare for hosting and GitHub for code repository management. Growth indicators include a long domain age since 2015 and active community links. Strategic observations suggest potential for expansion by adding formal privacy and security policies and enhancing user engagement features.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and domain transfer protections. However, the lack of DNSSEC, security headers, and formal privacy and cookie policies indicates gaps in security best practices and compliance. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the provided content. Incident response readiness is low due to absence of contact channels for security issues. The security culture appears informal with no published certifications or frameworks. Compliance with GDPR or other regulations is not evident. Enhancing security headers, enabling DNSSEC, publishing privacy and cookie policies, and establishing incident response contacts would significantly improve the security posture.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to strengthen DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement standard security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options to mitigate common web attacks.
  3. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to improve GDPR compliance and user trust.
  4. Provide clear contact information including security incident response channels (e.g., security@ or abuse@ emails).
  5. Create and publish a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Cloudflare, Inc
Description
Code Golf is a game designed to let you show off your code-fu by solving problems in the least number of characters.
Key services
Coding challenges, Code golfing competitions, Ranking and statistics, Community engagement via Discord
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript ES Modules
Performance
fast
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a niche coding challenge platform with a clear focus on code golfing.
  2. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found on the homepage or footer.
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly provided on the homepage.
  4. External links include GitHub for source code, Discord for community, API documentation, and status page.
  5. No analytics or advertising scripts detected in the HTML content.
  6. Website uses modern JavaScript modules and responsive CSS for light/dark themes.
  7. No security headers explicitly visible in the HTML content; likely configured at server level but not confirmed.
  8. No forms present on the homepage except a login link redirecting to GitHub OAuth.
  9. No social media links except GitHub and Discord.
  10. No structured data (JSON-LD) found in the HTML head.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern, lightweight technical stack with HTML5, CSS3 supporting light and dark modes, and JavaScript ES modules for modular scripting. Hosting is provided by Cloudflare, ensuring fast performance and reliable uptime. The site is mobile-optimized and includes proper meta tags for SEO and social sharing. No CMS or large frameworks are detected, indicating a custom-built or minimalistic approach. The absence of analytics or advertising scripts suggests a privacy-conscious or minimal tracking approach. Technical risks include missing DNSSEC and lack of visible security headers, which could expose the site to certain attack vectors. Overall, the infrastructure is solid but could benefit from enhanced security configurations and formal compliance documentation.
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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