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Security report for creativeboom.com

Creative Boom · Media · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

67/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Creative Boom is a prominent UK-based art and design media platform delivering news, inspiration, and insights to millions of creative professionals annually. The website features a rich variety of content including articles, podcasts, and videos, targeting creative industry workers and artists. It maintains a strong market position as a leading creative industry publication with a professional and consistent brand presence. Technically, the site employs modern web technologies such as Tailwind CSS, Swiper.js, and Cloudflare Turnstile captcha, ensuring fast performance, mobile optimization, and good SEO practices. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and bot protection mechanisms in place, though explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not published. Privacy and cookie policies are present and indicate GDPR compliance. The lack of WHOIS domain registration data introduces some uncertainty about domain registration transparency, but the active and professional website content supports legitimacy. Overall, the site is well-maintained, trustworthy, and serves its target audience effectively.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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

5 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 Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

  3. 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.

    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching creativeboom.com

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.

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
25
Email security
60
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
67

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

Creative Boom operates as a media publishing platform focused on the creative industries, generating revenue primarily through advertising and sponsored content. Its target audience includes creative professionals, designers, and artists, with content tailored to industry news, inspiration, and practical advice. The platform leverages partnerships with advertising networks and community engagement sites to expand reach. The company demonstrates strong digital maturity with a modern tech stack and active social media presence across multiple platforms. While business registration details are not publicly disclosed, the brand's market positioning and content quality indicate a stable and reputable operation within the UK creative media sector.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and use of Cloudflare Turnstile captcha to mitigate automated threats. Security headers are likely implemented though not explicitly confirmed in the HTML. No sensitive data exposure or vulnerable libraries were detected. However, the absence of a published security policy, incident response plan, or vulnerability disclosure mechanism limits transparency and preparedness visibility. Privacy compliance is addressed with clear privacy and cookie policies, supporting GDPR adherence. Recommendations include publishing explicit security headers, incident response contacts, and a vulnerability disclosure policy to enhance trust and readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Publish explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Referrer-Policy to strengthen browser security.
  2. Establish and publicly share an incident response policy and contact channels for security issues to improve transparency and readiness.
  3. Implement a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Verify and disclose domain registration details to improve domain trustworthiness and reduce ambiguity.
  5. Continue enhancing privacy compliance measures and maintain clear, accessible privacy and cookie policies.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Creative Boom
Description
Creative Boom is a leading UK art and design platform that delivers creative industry news, inspiration, insight and advice to six million creative professionals each year.
Key services
creative industry news, inspiration articles, insight and advice, podcast, community engagement, advertising opportunities
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, Cloudflare Turnstile (captcha), Progressive Web App features (preload fonts), YouTube embedded videos
Frameworks
Tailwind CSS (inferred from class names), Swiper.js (carousel), Custom JS for search and navigation
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Cloudflare Turnstile captcha for bot protection
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with no visible vulnerabilities

Analytics and tracking

Services
Plausible Analytics
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Plausible Analytics (pa-script.js)
Marketing tools
Google site verification, Facebook app id
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and multimedia.
  2. No WAF or security challenge detected.
  3. WHOIS data unavailable or protected, limiting domain trust verification.
  4. Strong social media presence across multiple platforms.
  5. Use of modern web technologies and good SEO practices.
  6. Privacy and cookie policies are present and appear compliant.
  7. No direct company contact emails or phone numbers found in HTML; contact via form and social media.
  8. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  9. Advertising is present but transparent and professional.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built with modern front-end technologies including Tailwind CSS for styling and Swiper.js for interactive carousels, ensuring a responsive and engaging user experience. It uses Cloudflare Turnstile captcha for bot protection and embeds multimedia content such as YouTube videos. The site demonstrates fast loading times and good SEO optimization with proper meta tags and structured navigation. No CMS was explicitly detected, suggesting a custom or headless CMS solution. Hosting appears to be via Cloudflare or a similar CDN provider, enhancing performance and security. Opportunities exist to improve technical documentation of security headers and to confirm CMS and backend technologies for a fuller technical profile.
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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