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Security report for ethanmarcotte.com

Ethan Marcotte · Technology · United States

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

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Ethan Marcotte's website serves as a professional personal brand platform showcasing his expertise as a web designer, writer, and speaker. The site highlights his pioneering role in responsive web design, his published books, speaking engagements, and thought leadership in technology and labor issues. The business model centers on content creation, consulting, and public speaking, targeting digital professionals and tech labor advocates. Technically, the site is built using the Eleventy static site generator, hosted on DigitalOcean, and optimized for performance, accessibility, and mobile devices. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enabled and no exposed sensitive data, though improvements are recommended in DNSSEC, security headers, and published security policies. Privacy compliance is lacking due to absence of privacy and cookie policies. Overall, the site is trustworthy, professional, and well-maintained, with minor gaps in compliance and security best practices.

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 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 ethanmarcotte.com

This scan found 23 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
72
Security headers
50
Email security
70
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
65

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 website positions Ethan Marcotte as a leading figure in web design, leveraging his long-standing reputation and authorship of influential books. The business operates as a small entity focused on personal branding and thought leadership rather than large-scale commercial operations. The target audience includes web designers, developers, and tech labor activists. The site’s extensive external links to reputable conferences, media, and blogs indicate a strong professional network and influence. Revenue streams likely include book sales, speaking fees, and consulting engagements. The absence of direct sales or e-commerce suggests a focus on reputation and influence rather than transactional business. The partnership ecosystem is informal, consisting mainly of industry events and media outlets.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. However, the lack of DNSSEC, security headers, and published security or incident response policies indicates room for improvement. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are present, which could hinder coordinated vulnerability reporting. The site uses secure forms for newsletter subscription but lacks explicit privacy and cookie consent mechanisms, potentially exposing it to compliance risks under GDPR or similar regulations. Overall, the security culture appears cautious but could benefit from formalized policies and enhanced technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement and publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism to improve GDPR compliance.
  3. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to strengthen browser security.
  4. Publish a security policy and incident response contact information to facilitate vulnerability reporting and improve transparency.
  5. Consider adding a security.txt file to formalize vulnerability disclosure and improve security posture.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Ethan Marcotte
Description
Ethan Marcotte is a web designer, writer, and speaker based in Boston. He focuses on designing and building beautiful, accessible web experiences and helping organizations create effective design systems. He coined the term "responsive design" in 2010. He also writes and speaks about digital design, technology, labor, and justice.
Key services
web design, writing, speaking, consulting
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Eleventy v3.1.1, JavaScript, CSS, WebP images, SVG
Frameworks
Eleventy
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • No exposed sensitive data
  • Secure forms with POST method
  • No vulnerable libraries detected

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional personal brand site for Ethan Marcotte, a recognized web design expert.
  2. Content is rich, well-structured, and includes books, talks, articles, and press mentions.
  3. No privacy or cookie policies found, which is a compliance gap.
  4. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure found.
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly listed on the homepage; contact is via a form on a dedicated page.
  6. Site uses HTTPS and is hosted on DigitalOcean with DNS managed by DigitalOcean name servers.
  7. No DNSSEC enabled, which is a minor security improvement opportunity.
  8. No advertising or tracking scripts detected.
  9. Social media presence includes Mastodon, Bluesky, LinkedIn; Instagram and Twitter are struck out.
  10. No explicit security headers detected in the HTML content provided.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern static site generator (Eleventy) with a clean, semantic HTML structure and optimized assets including WebP images and SVG graphics. Hosting on DigitalOcean with DigitalOcean DNS provides a reliable infrastructure. The site demonstrates fast performance and excellent mobile responsiveness. Accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA attributes are present, enhancing usability. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and Open Graph data. No third-party analytics or advertising scripts were detected, minimizing tracking and improving privacy. The technical implementation is robust with minimal technical debt, though adding security headers and DNSSEC would further harden the infrastructure.
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. 62/100Medium34 findingsView report
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