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Security report for couragefound.org

Courage Foundation · Non-profit · France

High risk. 10 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 3 other checks.

Security score

48/100

Risk levelHigh

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

The Courage Foundation is an established international non-profit organization founded in 2013, dedicated to supporting whistleblowers and journalists who face persecution. The website serves as a platform for advocacy, fundraising, and public awareness campaigns, particularly focusing on high-profile cases such as Julian Assange. The organization targets activists, supporters of press freedom, and the general public interested in human rights. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with common plugins for contact forms and donations, showing moderate performance and good mobile optimization. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS enabled but lacks advanced security headers and DNSSEC, and no formal privacy or cookie policies are published. Contact information is limited but includes verified email addresses and social media links. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and content is safe for general audiences.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 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

10 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 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

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

Keep watching couragefound.org

This scan found 27 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
72
Security headers
15
Email security
75
DNS health
70
Network security
20
GDPR outside view
35
Average
48

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention couragefound.org, from OffSeq Breach.

No leaked records found

Breach holds no records for couragefound.org right now. New leaks arrive continuously, so monitoring on Breach alerts you if that changes.

Monitor on Breach (opens in a new tab)

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The Courage Foundation occupies a niche in the non-profit sector focused on legal defense and advocacy for whistleblowers and press freedom. Its business model relies on donations and public campaigns. The organization has a clear market position as a defender of truthtellers and journalists under threat. Partnerships such as with assangedefense.org enhance its advocacy reach. The website content and structure support its mission effectively, though there is room for improvement in transparency and compliance documentation. The absence of phone contact and physical address is typical for such non-profits but may limit some trust signals. The domain age and registration data support legitimacy and stability.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic security posture with HTTPS enabled and domain transfer protection. However, the lack of DNSSEC and absence of security headers like Content Security Policy, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options reduce its defense-in-depth. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies are published, which is a gap for transparency and security maturity. The site does not appear to use analytics or tracking scripts, reducing privacy risks. Overall, the security posture is moderate but could be improved with standard best practices and policy disclosures.

Recommendations

  1. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to improve GDPR compliance and user trust.
  2. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security.
  3. Implement standard security headers such as CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  4. Add an incident response and vulnerability disclosure page or security.txt file to improve transparency and security readiness.
  5. Consider adding more detailed contact information or a physical address to enhance business credibility.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Courage Foundation
Description
The Courage Foundation is an international organization that supports those who risk life or liberty to make significant contributions to the historical record. They fundraise for the legal and public defense of specific individuals subject to serious prosecution or persecution and campaign for the protection of truthtellers and the public’s right to know.
Key services
Legal defense fundraising, Public advocacy campaigns, Support for whistleblowers and journalists
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Contact Form 7 plugin, Donation Gauge plugin
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
65/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • ClientTransferProhibited domain status

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Marketing tools
Donation Gauge plugin
Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a WordPress-based non-profit site focused on whistleblower and press freedom advocacy.
  2. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found on the site.
  3. Contact information is limited to an email and contact form; no phone numbers or physical addresses provided.
  4. No explicit security policies or incident response information published.
  5. No DNSSEC enabled for domain, which is a minor security gap.
  6. Site uses HTTPS but no visible advanced security headers detected.
  7. No analytics or tracking scripts detected, indicating minimal user tracking.
  8. Social media presence includes Facebook and Twitter (X).
  9. Content is safe and suitable for general audiences.
  10. No advertising or affiliate marketing detected beyond donation tools.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern WordPress platform using standard plugins for contact forms and donation tracking. The tech stack includes jQuery and custom CSS for styling. Performance is moderate with good mobile responsiveness and basic accessibility features. SEO optimization is basic with meta tags present but no advanced structured data or Open Graph tags detected. Hosting provider details are not explicit but domain registrar is Gandi SAS with custom nameservers. No analytics or advertising scripts were detected, indicating a privacy-conscious approach. Technical risks include missing DNSSEC and lack of security headers, which should be addressed to reduce 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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