Skip to main content

Security report for elard.eu

European LEADER Association for Rural Development · Non-profit · Belgium

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 focused on improving rural life and promoting sustainable local development across Europe. With a network of 33 members and over 2,500 Local Action Groups, ELARD plays a significant role in advocacy, knowledge sharing, and project coordination in rural development. The website reflects this mission with comprehensive content, clear navigation, and a professional design. Technically, the site is built on WordPress using modern plugins and frameworks, with good SEO and mobile optimization. Security posture is solid with HTTPS, security headers, and cookie consent mechanisms, though explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not present. Overall, the site is trustworthy and aligns well with its stated business purpose.

Scanned

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.

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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. The full timeline opens with your unlock code.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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 operates as a membership-based non-profit association targeting rural communities and stakeholders involved in local development across Europe. Its competitive advantage lies in its extensive network and advocacy capabilities. The business model revolves around collaboration, project facilitation, and policy influence rather than commercial revenue. The organization maintains a strong partnership ecosystem and regularly updates its audience through events, publications, and newsletters. Growth indicators include active project hubs and engagement with EU rural development policies.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, presence of key security headers, and no visible exposure of sensitive data. Cookie consent is implemented in compliance with GDPR. However, the absence of a dedicated security policy, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms indicates room for improvement in transparency and readiness. No vulnerable libraries or outdated scripts were detected in the provided content. Overall, the security risk is low but could be enhanced with formal policies and contact channels.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and user responsibilities.
  2. Add incident response contact information such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  3. Implement a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  4. Enhance website accessibility features to improve inclusivity.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party plugins and scripts to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
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 across 29 countries.
Key services
Advocacy, Knowledge sharing, Project coordination, Events and publications
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, WPBakery Page Builder, Yoast SEO, jQuery, Bootstrap, Google Analytics
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data found

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Tracking pixels
WordPress Stats
Marketing tools
Google Site Kit, Mailchimp (newsletter subscription)
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is professionally designed and well-structured.
  2. Content is focused on rural development and non-profit activities.
  3. Good use of SEO and structured data.
  4. Cookie consent and privacy policy are implemented.
  5. No visible security or privacy red flags.
  6. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the HTML content; contact form is primary contact method.
  7. No terms of service or explicit security policy pages found.
  8. Use of Google Analytics and other tracking scripts present.
  9. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with WPBakery Page Builder and Yoast SEO plugin, leveraging Bootstrap for responsive design. It uses jQuery and Google Analytics for interactivity and tracking. The site loads external resources from reputable CDNs and implements cookie consent scripts. Performance is moderate with room for optimization. The technical stack is modern and widely supported, but continuous maintenance is necessary to avoid plugin-related risks. SEO is well addressed with meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data. Mobile optimization is good, though accessibility could be improved.
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. 49/100High34 findingsView report
Reviews of this site

Share your experience with elard.eu. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review elard.eu.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.