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Security report for creativecommons.org

Creative Commons · Non-profit · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Creative Commons is a well-established international nonprofit organization founded in 2001, dedicated to enabling open sharing of knowledge and culture through its widely adopted open licenses and tools. The organization serves a global audience including educators, creators, and institutions, positioning itself as a leader in the open culture and commons movement. Their website reflects a professional and consistent brand with excellent content quality and clear navigation. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern SEO and analytics integrations, hosted with reputable providers and secured with HTTPS. Security posture is solid but could be improved by enabling DNSSEC and adding security headers. Privacy compliance is adequate with a clear privacy policy but lacks a cookie consent mechanism despite using Google Analytics. Contact information is transparent with email and postal address provided, though no phone numbers or explicit security incident contacts are published. Overall, the website is trustworthy, secure, and professionally maintained, supporting the organization's mission effectively.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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

6 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 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 creativecommons.org

This scan found 24 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
65
Security headers
15
Email security
85
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
65

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 creativecommons.org, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
2,229
Employees
0
Customers
2,180
Third parties
49
Weak passwords
17%

12 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for creativecommons.org.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

Creative Commons operates in the nonprofit sector focused on open licensing and knowledge sharing. Its competitive advantage lies in its long-standing reputation, global network, and widely recognized licensing framework. The business model is based on community support, donations, and partnerships, with revenue streams likely from grants and donations facilitated via partners like Classy.org. The target customers include educational institutions, cultural organizations, creators, and the general public interested in open access. The organization demonstrates growth through global events, certification programs, and an expanding network. Partnerships with platforms like Wikipedia, The Met, and Khan Academy reinforce its ecosystem and market presence.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and domain transfer protections in place. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers represents areas for improvement. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The use of Google Analytics is configured with IP anonymization, but the lack of a cookie consent mechanism may pose compliance risks under GDPR. Incident response and security policies are not publicly documented, which could impact transparency and readiness. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be enhanced by adopting additional best practices and explicit policies.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to strengthen DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection to mitigate common web attacks.
  3. Add a cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply fully with GDPR and other privacy regulations given the use of tracking analytics.
  4. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and preparedness.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and plugins to ensure no vulnerable libraries are in use and maintain up-to-date software versions.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Creative Commons
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Creative Commons
Description
Creative Commons is an international nonprofit organization that empowers people to grow and sustain the thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture to address global challenges and create a brighter future.
Key services
Creative Commons licenses, Open licensing tools, Educational resources and certification, Global network and community events, Search portal for openly licensed materials
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, Google Analytics (MonsterInsights), Cloudflare DNS, Vimeo embedded video, Font Awesome icons
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced with SSL
  • Client transfer prohibited domain status
  • IP anonymization enabled in Google Analytics
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Marketing tools
MonsterInsights Google Analytics plugin
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is professionally designed and well maintained.
  2. Content is rich, relevant, and well structured.
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity.
  4. Good use of open licenses and clear attribution.
  5. No phone numbers found; contact primarily via email and postal address.
  6. No cookie consent banner detected despite use of Google Analytics.
  7. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  8. Social media presence on LinkedIn, Mastodon, and Bluesky.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with Yoast SEO and MonsterInsights plugins, indicating a modern and SEO-optimized infrastructure. Hosting appears to leverage Cloudflare DNS services, enhancing availability and performance. The site includes embedded Vimeo videos and uses Font Awesome for icons, reflecting a rich media experience. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and accessibility features. Technical debt appears low, but enabling DNSSEC and adding security headers would modernize the security posture. The site uses structured data (JSON-LD) for SEO and social sharing, demonstrating good technical SEO practices.
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. 66/100 +14Medium32 findingsView report
  2. 52/100 −11Medium31 findingsView report
  3. 63/100Medium27 findingsView report
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