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Security report for development.asia

Asian Development Bank · Government · United States

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Development Asia is a knowledge collaboration platform operated by the Asian Development Bank, focusing on sharing development expertise, best practices, and technology relevant to Sustainable Development Goals in Asia. The platform targets professionals, government officials, civil society organizations, researchers, and students interested in economic and social development. It offers a wide range of content including case studies, policy briefs, technical notes, and interactive communities, positioning itself as a key regional knowledge resource. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10 CMS with modern frameworks like Bootstrap 5 and Font Awesome 6, hosted on Microsoft Azure DNS infrastructure. It integrates analytics and marketing tools such as Google Analytics and Mailchimp for user engagement and tracking. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, although performance is moderate. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS with domain status protections but lacks DNSSEC and explicit security headers. No public security or incident response policies are found, and no vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are published. Privacy compliance is partial, with a privacy policy and terms of use present but no cookie consent mechanism detected. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and well-positioned in its niche, with recommendations to enhance DNS security, implement security headers, and improve privacy compliance to strengthen its security posture and user trust.

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

7 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 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

    • 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 development.asia

This scan found 20 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
67
Security headers
50
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
70

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

Development Asia operates as an essential government-affiliated knowledge platform under the Asian Development Bank umbrella. It leverages partnerships with various subregional programs and related ADB websites to provide comprehensive development content. The business model centers on knowledge dissemination and community engagement rather than direct commercial revenue. Its market position is strong within the development sector in Asia, supported by a large institutional parent and a broad target audience. The platform's growth is indicated by its extensive topical and geographic coverage and integration with multiple related domains and social media channels.

Security posture

The website exhibits a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and domain status protections in place. However, the absence of DNSSEC, security headers, and publicly available security policies indicates areas for improvement. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the analysis. The lack of a vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact channels suggests limited readiness for security incident management. Enhancing these aspects would improve compliance with best practices and regulatory requirements such as GDPR and NIS2.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to protect against DNS spoofing and improve domain security.
  2. Implement standard security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  3. Publish explicit security and incident response policies, including contact channels for reporting vulnerabilities.
  4. Add a cookie consent mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and improve user transparency.
  5. Consider creating and publishing a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Asian Development Bank
Description
Development Asia is the Asian Development Bank's knowledge collaboration platform for sharing development experience and expertise, best practice, and technology relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Key services
knowledge sharing, case studies, policy briefs, technical notes, question and answer forums, online communities, newsletter subscription
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Bootstrap 5.1.3, Font Awesome 6, Google Analytics, Mailchimp
Frameworks
Drupal CMS, Bootstrap CSS framework
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status includes clientDeleteProhibited and other EPP protections

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Mailchimp tracking
Marketing tools
Mailchimp
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional knowledge sharing platform affiliated with Asian Development Bank.
  2. Content is rich with topics, countries, and sustainable development goals coverage.
  3. Uses modern web technologies and CMS (Drupal 10).
  4. No privacy or cookie consent banner detected, which may be a compliance gap.
  5. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  6. WHOIS privacy protection is used but justified.
  7. No suspicious or malicious indicators found.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern and robust technology stack centered on Drupal 10 CMS, enhanced with Bootstrap 5 for responsive design and Font Awesome 6 for iconography. Hosting is supported by Microsoft Azure DNS infrastructure, indicating reliable and scalable backend services. Integration with Google Analytics and Mailchimp supports marketing and user engagement efforts. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization and accessibility features, though performance is moderate and could benefit from optimization. No deprecated or vulnerable libraries were detected. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports the platform's mission effectively but could be enhanced with additional security and privacy features.
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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