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Security report for give.org

Council of Better Business Bureaus · Non-profit · United States

Medium risk. 3 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

75/100

Risk levelMedium

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

BBB Wise Giving Alliance, operated by the Council of Better Business Bureaus, is a reputable non-profit organization focused on evaluating and accrediting charities to promote wise giving. The website serves donors and the general public by providing charity ratings, reports, and trusted advice backed by over 100 years of experience. It holds a strong market position as a trusted charity evaluator with a recognized BBB Accredited Charity Seal. The digital infrastructure is built on Sitefinity CMS with modern web technologies including Bootstrap and jQuery, hosted on AWS infrastructure. The site is mobile-optimized and provides a professional user experience with clear navigation and comprehensive content. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enabled and domain protections in place, though DNSSEC is not enabled and security headers are not explicitly detected. Privacy compliance is good with a comprehensive privacy policy, though a cookie consent mechanism is absent. Overall, the website demonstrates high business credibility and trustworthiness.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 100 · Medium
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

3 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.

    • 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

  2. SSL/TLS

    TLS encrypts the connection and proves the site is really yours. Weak or expiring certificates trigger browser warnings and put traffic at risk.

    • High

      Weak Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

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This scan found 20 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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  • 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
77
Security headers
80
Email security
70
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
75

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 organization operates in the non-profit sector, providing essential services in charity evaluation and accreditation. Its business model is based on providing free charity reports and licensing the BBB Accredited Charity Seal to qualifying organizations. The target audience includes donors seeking trustworthy charities and charities seeking accreditation. The website's content and services indicate a medium-sized organization with a long history since 1995. Partnerships include GiveSafely.io for donation facilitation. The organization maintains a strong brand presence with consistent messaging and multiple trust indicators such as social media channels and detailed charity standards.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate and has domain transfer protections enabled. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, which could improve DNS security. No explicit security headers were detected in the provided data, representing an area for improvement. The site uses secure forms with client-side validation and integrates third-party marketing tools like Constant Contact and Google Analytics responsibly. There is no public incident response or security policy page, which could enhance transparency and readiness. Overall, the security posture is good but could be strengthened with additional headers and DNS security.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to enhance domain name system security.
  2. Implement security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Add a cookie consent banner to comply fully with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  4. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to improve transparency and preparedness.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate vulnerabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Council of Better Business Bureaus
Description
BBB Wise Giving Alliance (BBB’s Give.org) is a standards-based charity evaluator that seeks to verify the trustworthiness of publicly-soliciting charities.
Key services
Charity evaluation, Charity accreditation, Charity ratings and reports, Donor advice, Charity accreditation seal licensing
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Bootstrap 4 and 5, jQuery 3.7.1, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Constant Contact forms, Sitefinity CMS 12.2.7232.0 PE, Custom JavaScript for UI interactions
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Platforms
Sitefinity CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • ClientTransferProhibited domain status
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with validation
  • Privacy policy present

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Marketing tools
Constant Contact
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is professionally designed and well-structured.
  2. Content is comprehensive and focused on charity evaluation and donor education.
  3. Multiple trust signals including BBB accreditation and social media presence.
  4. Use of modern web technologies and CMS (Sitefinity).
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious content.
  6. Privacy policy and terms of use are clearly linked and accessible.
  7. No explicit phone numbers or direct emails found; contact via contact page and forms.
  8. No cookie consent banner detected, which may be a GDPR compliance gap.
  9. Security headers are not explicitly detected in provided data.
  10. Domain WHOIS data is consistent and trustworthy.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Sitefinity CMS platform, leveraging Bootstrap for responsive design and jQuery for interactivity. It uses Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager for analytics and tracking, and Constant Contact for email marketing forms. Hosting is via AWS as indicated by DNS servers. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive layouts and accessible navigation. Performance is moderate with room for optimization. The code includes custom JavaScript for UI enhancements and form validation. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and Open Graph data. There is no evidence of outdated or vulnerable libraries in the provided data.
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. 75/100Medium28 findingsView report
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