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Security report for elard.eu

European LEADER Association for Rural Development · Non-profit · N/a

High risk. 8 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

49/100

Risk levelHigh

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

The European LEADER Association for Rural Development (ELARD) is a well-established non-profit organization dedicated to improving rural life quality across Europe through sustainable and integrated local development. The association unites over 2500 Local Action Groups from 29 countries, advocating participatory democracy and rural community empowerment. The website serves as a comprehensive platform for members and stakeholders, offering information on projects, advocacy, events, and publications. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with a modern tech stack including Bootstrap and various plugins, providing a good user experience with mobile optimization and SEO enhancements. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and cookie consent mechanisms, though some security headers and incident response details could be improved. Overall, the site reflects a professional and trustworthy digital presence suitable for its non-profit mission.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of elard.eu. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
28/ 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. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • Critical

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

    • 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

  2. 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';…

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

Keep watching elard.eu

This scan found 26 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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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
72
Security headers
15
Email security
85
DNS health
75
Network security
20
GDPR outside view
28
Average
49

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

ELARD occupies a niche position in the European rural development sector, leveraging a membership model that connects Local Action Groups and Fisheries Local Action Groups. Its business model focuses on advocacy, knowledge sharing, and community engagement rather than commercial revenue. The organization benefits from a broad partnership ecosystem across multiple European countries, enhancing its influence and reach. The website supports this ecosystem by providing up-to-date news, events, and project insights, fostering collaboration and transparency. Growth indicators include active newsletter subscriptions and a visible project hub. Strategic observations suggest continued emphasis on digital engagement and expanding advocacy efforts to maintain relevance and impact.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to good security maturity level with enforced HTTPS, cookie consent, and no visible sensitive data exposure. However, the absence of explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy and lack of a security.txt file indicate room for improvement. No incident response contacts or vulnerability disclosure policies are present, which could hinder rapid response to security issues. The use of common WordPress plugins necessitates regular updates to mitigate vulnerabilities. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a non-profit but should be enhanced to align with best practices and compliance requirements such as GDPR and NIS2.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including CSP, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to strengthen browser security.
  2. Publish a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure and improve incident response readiness.
  3. Regularly update WordPress core, themes, and plugins to minimize risk from known vulnerabilities.
  4. Add explicit incident response contact information on the website to improve transparency and trust.
  5. Enhance accessibility features and conduct periodic security audits to maintain compliance and security posture.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
European LEADER Association for Rural Development
Description
ELARD is an international non-profit association set up to improve the quality of life in rural areas and to maintain their population through sustainable, integrated local development. It brings together Local Action Groups committed to involving all stakeholders in rural development at a local level. The association includes almost 2600 Local Action Groups and Fisheries Local Action Groups from 29 countries.
Key services
Advocacy, Knowledge Hub and project support, Events and networking, Publications and newsletters
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Bootstrap, Yoast SEO, WPBakery Page Builder, Ultimate VC Addons, Contact Form 7, Easy Fancybox, TablePress, Google Analytics
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data found in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Jetpack Stats
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Jetpack Stats
Marketing tools
Google Site Kit
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 non-profit association site focused on rural development in Europe.
  2. Content is rich with multiple sections including members, projects, advocacy, events, and news.
  3. Cookie consent is implemented with a third-party service (hu-manity).
  4. No visible contact emails or phone numbers in the main HTML; contact form is present.
  5. Use of WordPress CMS with common plugins and themes.
  6. Google Analytics and Jetpack used for analytics.
  7. No visible security.txt or explicit incident response contacts.
  8. No terms of service page detected.
  9. Privacy policy is available as a downloadable PDF document.
  10. No signs of adult or questionable content.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a WordPress CMS platform utilizing Bootstrap for responsive design and several popular plugins such as WPBakery Page Builder, Contact Form 7, and Ultimate VC Addons. The tech stack supports a moderate performance level with good mobile optimization and SEO practices via Yoast SEO. External resources include Google Fonts and Google Analytics for tracking. The site uses a cookie consent solution from hu-manity.co, indicating attention to privacy compliance. While the infrastructure is modern and functional, opportunities exist to improve performance through optimization and to reduce technical debt by ensuring all plugins and libraries are up to date and security hardened.
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. 49/100High35 findingsView report
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