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Security report for ecmwf.int

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts · Government · United Kingdom

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

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operates as a leading international research institute and operational service specializing in global numerical weather predictions and meteorological data archives. The organization serves its Member and Co-operating States alongside the broader meteorological and research community. The website reflects a mature digital presence with a focus on delivering scientific and operational content related to weather forecasting and supercomputing resources. The site is built on Drupal 9 and integrates modern analytics and user interaction tools such as Google Tag Manager and Mouseflow, indicating a commitment to understanding user engagement and improving service delivery. From a security perspective, the website employs HTTPS with an excellent SSL configuration, ensuring encrypted communications. However, there is a lack of explicit security headers and visible privacy or cookie policies, which are critical for compliance with data protection regulations such as GDPR. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is present, which could be improved to enhance transparency and trust. The absence of contact emails and phone numbers in the provided content limits direct user engagement but may be available elsewhere on the site. Overall, the website demonstrates a strong business credibility and technical foundation but requires enhancements in privacy compliance and security transparency to align with best practices. The domain's WHOIS data confirms the legitimacy and long-standing nature of the organization, reinforcing trust in the digital presence. Strategic recommendations include implementing comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanisms, publishing security policies and incident response contacts, adding vulnerability disclosure information, and enhancing security headers to fortify the site's security posture.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of ecmwf.int. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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 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

  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 Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

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

Keep watching ecmwf.int

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
77
Security headers
40
Email security
75
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
73

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

ECMWF holds a prominent position as an essential government and research entity in the meteorological sector, providing critical weather forecasting services and data to European Member and Co-operating States. Its business model combines research and operational service delivery, supported by one of the world's largest supercomputing facilities. The target audience includes governmental agencies, meteorological organizations, researchers, and the general public interested in weather data. The organization's market position is strong due to its international collaboration and advanced technological infrastructure. The website content and structure reflect a professional and consistent branding strategy, supporting its authoritative role in the sector. While direct revenue streams are not evident, the organization's funding likely comes from member states and research grants. The partnership ecosystem includes related ECMWF services such as charts.ecmwf.int. Growth indicators are implied through continuous research and technological advancements.

Security posture

The website exhibits a good security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and no visible exposure of sensitive data in the HTML content. The use of Google Tag Manager and Mouseflow for analytics is standard but requires careful management to avoid privacy issues. The lack of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents a gap that could be exploited in certain attack scenarios. No visible vulnerabilities or outdated libraries were detected in the provided content. The absence of a published security policy, incident response plan, or vulnerability disclosure mechanism limits the organization's transparency and readiness to handle security incidents. Compliance with GDPR and other data protection regulations is not clearly demonstrated due to missing privacy and cookie policies. Overall, the security posture is solid but could be significantly improved by addressing these compliance and transparency gaps.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and prominently display a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie policy with user consent mechanisms to ensure GDPR compliance.
  2. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to enhance transparency and preparedness.
  3. Add a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Enhance HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options to strengthen defense against common web attacks.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and analytics tools to mitigate potential vulnerabilities and privacy risks.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Description
ECMWF is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. We are both a research institute and a 24/7 operational service, producing global numerical weather predictions and other data for our Member and Co-operating States and the broader community. The Centre has one of the largest supercomputer facilities and meteorological data archives in the world
Key services
Global numerical weather predictions, Meteorological data archives, Research in numerical weather prediction, Computing and supercomputing services
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 9, Google Tag Manager, Mouseflow, AddToAny sharing, MathJax
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Use of Google Tag Manager for analytics
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager), Mouseflow
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Mouseflow
Marketing tools
AddToAny sharing
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 government/research organization site
  2. Content is rich and relevant to meteorological research and services
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie policies found in the provided HTML
  4. Use of modern web technologies and analytics tools
  5. No visible contact emails or phone numbers in the provided content
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found
  7. No incident response or security policy information found
  8. No forms with personal data collection detected in the provided snippet
  9. External links mostly to trusted domains related to analytics and ECMWF services
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 9, a modern and widely used content management system, indicating a solid technical foundation. It integrates several third-party scripts including Google Tag Manager for analytics, Mouseflow for user behavior tracking, AddToAny for social sharing, and MathJax for mathematical content rendering. The site uses responsive design techniques and includes accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA roles, contributing to a good user experience across devices. Performance appears moderate, with multiple CSS files and external scripts that could be optimized further. SEO is supported by canonical links, meta descriptions, and Open Graph tags. No hosting provider information was explicitly found in the content. The technical stack is modern but could benefit from performance optimizations and enhanced security configurations.
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. 72/100Medium27 findingsView report
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