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Security report for compendiumkustenzee.be

Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee · Government · Belgium

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Email security and 2 other checks.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Compendium Kust en Zee website is an authoritative knowledge platform operated by the Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ), a Belgian governmental research institute. It provides comprehensive scientific summaries, policy overviews, and marine research information focused on the Belgian part of the North Sea. The site targets researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders interested in marine and coastal management. The business model is non-commercial, focusing on knowledge dissemination and policy support. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10, leveraging modern web technologies including Matomo for analytics and Font Awesome for icons. The site is mobile-optimized, accessible, and performs moderately well. Privacy compliance is well addressed with cookie consent mechanisms and a linked privacy policy. However, explicit security policies and incident response information are not publicly available. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS and has no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. The absence of security headers is a minor gap, and the site would benefit from publishing vulnerability disclosure information. Overall, the security posture is solid for an institutional website. The domain is registered with BELNET since 2013, consistent with the institutional nature of the site and Belgian origin. No suspicious patterns or privacy protection issues are detected. The website is trustworthy, professional, and safe for general audiences.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
40/ 100 · High
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

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

    • 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

  2. 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

  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

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching compendiumkustenzee.be

This scan found 26 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
62
Security headers
55
Email security
60
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
40
Average
63

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

The website serves as a key knowledge resource in the marine and coastal domain for Belgium, positioning itself as an authoritative source backed by a government research institute. Its competitive advantage lies in its comprehensive integration of scientific data, policy frameworks, and research infrastructure information. The business model is focused on public knowledge dissemination rather than commercial revenue. The target customers include government agencies, researchers, and marine stakeholders. Growth indicators include regular publication updates and active news dissemination. The partnership ecosystem includes related Belgian marine portals and research bodies. Strategic observations highlight the importance of maintaining up-to-date content and enhancing security transparency to strengthen trust.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS encryption and minimal tracking via Matomo analytics respecting user privacy. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive information were found. However, the lack of explicit security policies, incident response contacts, and security headers represents areas for improvement. GDPR compliance is evident through cookie consent mechanisms and a privacy policy. Incident response readiness is unclear due to missing contact channels. Overall, the site is secure for its purpose but could enhance transparency and technical security controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement HTTP security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response information page to improve transparency and preparedness.
  3. Create and host a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Regularly audit third-party libraries and dependencies to ensure no vulnerabilities are introduced.
  5. Enhance data retention and privacy policy details to align with best GDPR practices and improve user trust.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee
Description
A knowledge compendium providing scientific summaries and policy overviews related to the Belgian part of the North Sea, including marine research, legislation, and coastal usage.
Key services
Scientific knowledge summaries, Policy and legislation overviews, Marine research information, Publication dissemination, News updates
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Matomo Analytics, Font Awesome 6.7.2, jQuery Slick Carousel
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner with opt-in
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a government/institutional knowledge platform focused on Belgian marine and coastal information.
  2. Content is well-structured and professionally presented in Dutch.
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity.
  4. Good privacy and cookie compliance mechanisms implemented.
  5. No explicit security policies or incident response information publicly available.
  6. No terms of service or vulnerability disclosure pages found.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern Drupal 10 CMS platform, utilizing Font Awesome for iconography and jQuery Slick for carousel functionality. Analytics are handled via Matomo, a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics. The site is mobile responsive and includes accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA roles. Performance is moderate, with deferred and async loading of scripts to optimize page load times. The hosting appears to be managed by BELNET, a Belgian academic and governmental network provider, which aligns with the institutional nature of the site. Technical risks are low, but the absence of some security headers and explicit security documentation could be addressed to reduce potential attack surface.
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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