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Security report for data-and-design.org

Data & Design Group · Education · United States

Medium risk. 8 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

59/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Data & Design Group is an interdisciplinary academic research group affiliated with the University of Colorado Boulder, focusing on using design to understand and reimagine socio-technical systems. Their work emphasizes accessibility in data analysis, data ethics, and interactive visualization tools. The website reflects a small, specialized academic entity with a clear research focus and target audience of researchers, students, and activists interested in data ethics and design. Technically, the website is built using the Jekyll static site generator with modern JavaScript libraries such as jQuery and Moment.js. The site demonstrates good design quality, mobile optimization, and SEO practices, though performance is moderate. Hosting appears to be via NameCheap, with no advanced security configurations like DNSSEC enabled. No privacy or cookie policies are present, and no contact emails or phone numbers are provided, limiting user engagement and compliance transparency. From a security perspective, the site uses a domain status that prevents unauthorized transfers but lacks DNSSEC and visible security headers. There is no evidence of HTTPS enforcement or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. The absence of privacy and cookie policies indicates compliance gaps with GDPR and related regulations. Overall, the security posture is moderate but could be improved with standard best practices. The overall risk is low given the academic nature and lack of sensitive data collection, but the site should enhance privacy compliance and security configurations to build trust and meet regulatory expectations.

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

8 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 data-and-design.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.

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
62
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
59

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 Data & Design Group operates as a small academic research entity within the education and technology sectors. Their market position is niche, focusing on socio-technical system design and data ethics research. The business model is primarily educational and research-driven, likely funded through university resources and grants. Their target customers include academic peers, students, and activists interested in data ethics and accessibility. The group maintains a partnership ecosystem centered on the University of Colorado Boulder. Growth indicators include recent domain registration and active recruitment for Ph.D. students. The website content and structure support their academic credibility but lack commercial or monetization elements.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic security maturity level with some protective measures such as clientTransferProhibited domain status. However, the lack of DNSSEC, security headers, and visible HTTPS enforcement are notable gaps. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is provided, indicating limited readiness for security incidents. The absence of privacy and cookie policies also reflects compliance shortcomings. While no critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected, the site would benefit from implementing standard security best practices and compliance documentation to enhance trust and regulatory adherence.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement HTTPS with a valid SSL/TLS certificate and enforce secure connections site-wide.
  3. Add standard security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  4. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to improve GDPR and privacy compliance.
  5. Establish a vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact information to enhance security transparency and readiness.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Data & Design Group
Description
An interdisciplinary research group at the University of Colorado Boulder that uses design to understand and reimagine socio-technical systems.
Key services
Research on accessible data analysis, Interactive visualization tools, Data refusal and ethics frameworks, Embodiment and visibility studies
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
HTML5, CSS (main.css), JavaScript, jQuery 3.7.1, Moment.js, Moment Timezone, Animated Cursor library
Frameworks
Jekyll v3.10.0
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
50/100
Good practices seen
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited set
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is an academic research group site affiliated with University of Colorado Boulder.
  2. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found on the site.
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly provided.
  4. Site uses modern frontend libraries and Jekyll static site generator.
  5. No security headers or HTTPS status visible from provided data.
  6. No advertising or tracking technologies detected.
  7. Content is safe and suitable for general audiences.
  8. WHOIS data shows recent domain registration with no privacy protection.
  9. No forms or data collection fields detected on the homepage content.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern static site generator (Jekyll) with a clean HTML5 and CSS3 structure. It uses popular JavaScript libraries like jQuery and Moment.js for interactivity and time zone handling. The site loads external scripts from reputable CDNs, contributing to moderate performance. Mobile optimization is good, and SEO metadata is well implemented with Open Graph and JSON-LD structured data. However, the site lacks advanced security configurations such as DNSSEC and security headers. Hosting is via NameCheap, which is a common registrar but no specific hosting provider details are evident. There is no evidence of CMS beyond Jekyll, and no analytics or tracking services are detected, indicating minimal technical complexity and low risk of technical debt.
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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