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Security report for ethrat.ch

ETH-Rat · Education · Switzerland

High risk. 9 critical or high findings in Network security, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

37/100

Risk levelHigh

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

ETH-Rat is the strategic management and supervisory body for the ETH Domain in Switzerland, overseeing major institutions including ETH Zurich, EPFL, and four research institutes. The website serves as an official government portal providing news, publications, governance information, and strategic plans related to the ETH Domain. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with Elementor and uses modern plugins and SEO tools, but suffers from slow performance and lacks a valid SSL certificate, impacting security and user trust. The security posture is weak due to missing HTTPS, lack of security headers, and absence of key email and DNS security records. Privacy compliance is minimal with no visible privacy or cookie policies. Overall, the site is professional and informative but requires urgent improvements in security and privacy to meet modern standards.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of ethrat.ch. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
25/ 100 · Critical
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

9 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Network security

    Services reachable from the internet are the first thing attackers probe. Anything open that does not need to be should be closed.

    • Critical

      Critical Service Exposed: MySQL

      Port 3306 (MySQL) is publicly accessible - MySQL - Database server

      What to do: Immediately restrict access to MySQL using firewall or VPN

      • NIS2 21(2)(e)
      • IR 2024/2690 6.7.2(f): Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 6.7.2(f): Network security
      • NIST CM-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-7: Least Functionality
      • NIST SC-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-7: Boundary Protection

  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';…

  3. 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

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

Keep watching ethrat.ch

This scan found 19 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
50
Security headers
20
Email security
50
DNS health
75
Network security
0
GDPR outside view
25
Average
37

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 · found on this site
  • 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 ETH-Rat website positions itself as a central governmental entity for Swiss higher education and research governance. It targets stakeholders such as government officials, researchers, and the public interested in ETH Domain activities. The business model is non-commercial, focused on governance and oversight. The site demonstrates a consistent branding strategy and maintains partnerships with major Swiss research institutions. Its content strategy includes multilingual support and regular publication of reports and news, indicating a mature communication approach. However, the lack of direct contact emails and phone numbers on the homepage suggests a controlled communication channel, likely centralized through a contact page. The presence of social media links on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Issuu supports outreach and transparency.

Security posture

The website's security posture is currently weak. The absence of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support is a critical vulnerability that exposes users to data interception risks. The lack of security headers and missing DNS security features such as DNSSEC and DMARC further increase exposure to attacks like DNS spoofing and email phishing. While SPF is configured correctly, the absence of DMARC reduces email protection effectiveness. No vulnerabilities like subdomain takeover or known SSL/TLS exploits were detected, but the overall lack of modern security practices is concerning. Incident response and security policies are not publicly documented, limiting transparency. Immediate remediation of SSL/TLS and security headers is recommended to improve trust and compliance.

Recommendations

  1. Install and maintain a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Implement security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options.
  3. Add DMARC DNS record and enable DNSSEC to enhance email and DNS security.
  4. Publish clear privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanisms to improve GDPR compliance.
  5. Improve website performance by optimizing resources and reducing load time.
  6. Provide explicit contact emails and phone numbers for better user support and transparency.
  7. Regularly audit and update third-party plugins and scripts to avoid vulnerabilities.
  8. Enable OCSP stapling and session resumption for better SSL performance and security.
  9. Enhance accessibility features to improve user experience for all visitors.
  10. Maintain and publicize an incident response plan and security policy to build trust.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with Elementor page builder and uses several plugins including Yoast SEO, Essential Addons for Elementor, and 3D Flipbook. It integrates Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager for tracking. Hosting is managed by ETH Zurich's nameservers, indicating institutional hosting. The site suffers from slow load times (13+ seconds) and a large page size (~711 KB). Mobile optimization is good, with responsive design and language switching capabilities. SEO is well implemented with meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data. However, the lack of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols are major technical risks. No security headers or advanced security configurations are present. The site uses jQuery 1.12.4, which is outdated and may pose security risks. Overall, the technical infrastructure is functional but requires modernization and security hardening.
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. 44/100High35 findingsView report
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