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Security report for ethz-foundation.ch

ETH Zürich Foundation · Education · Switzerland

High risk. 7 critical or high findings in Network security, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

49/100

Risk levelHigh

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

ETH Zürich Foundation is a reputable non-profit organization dedicated to supporting education, research, and innovation at ETH Zürich through donations and strategic projects. The website reflects a mature digital presence with professional design, clear navigation, and comprehensive content targeting donors, alumni, and organizations interested in philanthropy. The technical infrastructure is based on WordPress with modern JavaScript libraries and SEO optimizations, hosted likely within ETH Zürich's infrastructure. However, a critical security weakness is the absence of a valid SSL certificate, resulting in no HTTPS support, which significantly impacts the site's security posture. Privacy compliance is well addressed with detailed cookie consent mechanisms and a comprehensive privacy policy. Contact information and social media presence further enhance business credibility.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
43/ 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

7 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 Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

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

Keep watching ethz-foundation.ch

This scan found 25 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
90
Security headers
20
Email security
65
DNS health
80
Network security
0
GDPR outside view
43
Average
50
After the cap
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 · 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 foundation operates in the education and non-profit sectors, focusing on fundraising and supporting projects in talents, entrepreneurship, digital transformation, health, and sustainability. Its market position is strong within the ETH Zürich ecosystem, leveraging partnerships such as RaiseNow for donation processing. The business model relies on donations and project funding, targeting a global audience of donors and stakeholders. The website's content quality and branding consistency support trust and engagement. Growth indicators include active content updates, multiple language support, and integration of modern analytics tools.

Security posture

The current security maturity level is low due to the lack of a valid SSL certificate and absence of HTTPS, exposing users to potential data interception risks. While SPF records and DNS configurations are properly set, the site lacks critical security headers, HSTS, and modern TLS protocol support. No explicit security policies or incident response information are published, indicating limited transparency in security governance. The cookie consent mechanism and privacy policy demonstrate good privacy practices, but the overall security posture requires urgent improvement to protect user data and maintain trust.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site immediately.
  2. Enable and enforce modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and configure HSTS with preload and includeSubDomains.
  3. Implement essential security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  4. Publish a clear security policy and incident response plan accessible from the website.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and scripts to avoid vulnerabilities.
  6. Enhance transparency by providing a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file.
  7. Maintain and monitor cookie consent compliance and data protection officer contact information.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress 6.6.2 with a rich set of JavaScript libraries including jQuery, GSAP, Slick Slider, Isotope, MixItUp, and Typewriter.js, indicating a modern and interactive user experience. SEO is enhanced via Yoast SEO Premium with structured data (JSON-LD) for organization and webpage metadata. Hosting appears to be managed by ETH Zürich with dedicated nameservers and IP addresses. Performance is moderate with a page load time of 3.5 seconds and 56 resources loaded. Accessibility and mobile optimization are good, supported by responsive design and font size toggling features. However, the lack of HTTPS and security headers introduces technical risks that could impact user trust and data security.
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

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