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Security report for crest.science

CREST · Education · France

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

Security score

55/100

Risk levelMedium

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

CREST is a French academic research center specializing in economics, statistics, finance, and sociology. The website serves as a portal for research publications, events, doctoral courses, and institutional information targeting academics, researchers, and students. The site is built on WordPress and integrates various plugins for events, publications, and user management. Despite rich content and good mobile optimization, the website lacks a valid SSL certificate, which severely impacts its security posture. Email security is well configured with SPF and DMARC policies. However, no explicit cookie consent mechanism or detailed security policies are present. Overall, the site is professional and content-rich but requires urgent improvements in HTTPS deployment and security headers to enhance trust and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
43/ 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. 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 crest.science

This scan found 19 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

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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
50
Security headers
15
Email security
50
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
43
Average
55

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

CREST operates as an essential academic institution in the education sector, focusing on research and doctoral education in economics and related fields. It maintains partnerships with academic and media organizations, evidenced by external links to reputable domains. The business model revolves around research dissemination, events, and education services. The presence of structured data and social media links supports its credibility and outreach. The organization is medium-sized, founded in 2014, and based in France. The website content is well-structured, targeting researchers, students, and academic collaborators.

Security posture

The website currently exhibits a basic security posture with critical gaps. The absence of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support is a major vulnerability, exposing users to data interception risks. No modern TLS protocols or security headers are enabled, and no HSTS or OCSP stapling is configured. Email security is robust with SPF and DMARC records enforcing strict policies. No incident response or security policy pages are found, indicating limited transparency on security governance. The site should prioritize SSL deployment and implement security best practices to mitigate risks and comply with GDPR and other regulations.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and install a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3) and disable insecure protocols.
  3. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload options.
  4. Add essential security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, and Referrer-Policy.
  5. Deploy a cookie consent mechanism to comply with GDPR and inform users about tracking.
  6. Publish clear security and incident response policies including contact channels for abuse or security issues.
  7. Regularly audit and update plugins and libraries to avoid vulnerabilities.
  8. Improve website performance by optimizing resources and reducing page size.
  9. Enhance accessibility features for better compliance and user experience.
  10. Maintain consistent branding and update content regularly to sustain trust.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by WordPress 6.2.2 with a variety of plugins including Smart Slider 3, Ultimate Member, The Events Calendar, Contact Form 7, and Ajaxy Search Form. It uses jQuery and several CSS frameworks for layout and styling. Hosting is provided by Gandi SAS as indicated by DNS and nameservers. The site has a large page size (~1.57 MB) and slow load time (~15.7 seconds), indicating potential performance bottlenecks. Mobile optimization is good with responsive design and mobile menus. SEO is supported by Yoast SEO plugin with proper meta tags and structured data in JSON-LD format. However, the lack of HTTPS and security headers presents a significant technical risk. The site uses Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for tracking, but lacks a cookie consent banner. Overall, the technical infrastructure is modern but requires security and performance improvements.
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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