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Security report for gstcouncil.org

GSTC - Global Sustainable Tourism Council · Hospitality · N/a

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

55/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) operates as an international non-profit organization focused on managing global standards for sustainable travel and tourism. It serves as the accreditation body for sustainable tourism certification, providing standards, certification accreditation, training programs, and membership services. The website targets a broad audience including hotels, tour operators, destinations, business travelers, certification bodies, consultants, and travelers. The organization is positioned as a key authority in sustainable tourism with a professional and comprehensive digital presence. Technically, the website is built on WordPress using the Avada theme framework, enhanced with multilingual support via WPML, and optimized for SEO with Yoast SEO Premium. It employs modern technologies including Google Tag Manager, LinkedIn Insight, and CookieYes for cookie consent management. The site is fast, mobile-optimized, and accessible, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, uses security headers, and integrates bot management services from Akamai and Cloudflare. The cookie consent mechanism is robust, offering detailed categories and user customization. However, the absence of a publicly accessible privacy policy, explicit contact information, and a vulnerability disclosure policy are notable gaps. WHOIS data is unavailable or privacy protected, which is common for non-profit organizations but limits domain trust analysis. Overall, the website presents a low-risk profile with strong professionalism and security posture but would benefit from enhanced transparency in privacy and contact disclosures to improve compliance and trustworthiness.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
65/ 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

7 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 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';…

  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

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Ads

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

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

Keep watching gstcouncil.org

This scan found 24 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
72
Security headers
15
Email security
75
DNS health
85
Network security
20
GDPR outside view
65
Average
55

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

GSTC holds a strong market position as the international accreditation authority for sustainable tourism certification. Its business model revolves around non-profit standards management, certification accreditation, training, and membership services. The organization leverages partnerships with certification bodies, tourism operators, and destinations globally. Revenue streams likely include membership fees, training program fees, and certification-related services. The multilingual website and extensive resource offerings indicate a global outreach strategy. The presence of webinars and conferences suggests active community engagement and thought leadership. The lack of explicit contact details on the homepage may indicate a controlled communication approach, typical for non-profits. Strategically, GSTC benefits from its recognized role in sustainable tourism, but should enhance transparency and direct communication channels to foster greater stakeholder trust and engagement.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, comprehensive security headers, and integration of bot management tools from Akamai and Cloudflare. The cookie consent mechanism complies with modern privacy standards, allowing users to customize preferences. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a privacy policy page, incident response contacts, and a vulnerability disclosure policy are gaps that could impact compliance with GDPR and other regulations. The WHOIS data is privacy protected, which is acceptable for this business type but limits external verification. Overall, the security posture is strong for a non-profit organization, but improvements in transparency and formal security policies would enhance compliance and stakeholder confidence.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy page prominently linked on the website.
  2. Add clear contact information including official company emails and phone numbers.
  3. Implement and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file.
  4. Provide incident response contact details to improve security transparency.
  5. Regularly review and update cookie consent and privacy compliance mechanisms.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
GSTC - Global Sustainable Tourism Council
Description
GSTC manages global standards for sustainable travel and tourism, and acts as the international accreditation body for sustainable tourism certification
Key services
Sustainable Tourism Standards Management, Certification Accreditation, Training Programs, Membership Services, Events and Webinars
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO Premium, WPML (Multilingual CMS), jQuery, Bootstrap, Google Tag Manager, LinkedIn Insight Tag, CookieYes Consent Management, Cloudflare Bot Management
Frameworks
Avada Theme Framework
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner with customization
  • Bot management via Akamai and Cloudflare
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Analytics, LinkedIn Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Google DoubleClick, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads
Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag
Marketing tools
Mailchimp
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges
  2. Content is comprehensive and professionally presented
  3. Strong focus on sustainable tourism standards and certification
  4. Multilingual support with language switcher for 5 languages
  5. Cookie consent mechanism is implemented with detailed categories
  6. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found on homepage
  7. WHOIS data is unavailable or privacy protected
  8. Use of multiple third-party analytics and advertising services
  9. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy detected
  10. No explicit privacy policy page found in provided content
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern WordPress CMS platform using the Avada theme framework, supported by WPML for multilingual capabilities and Yoast SEO Premium for search engine optimization. It integrates multiple third-party services including Google Tag Manager, LinkedIn Insight, Facebook Pixel, and CookieYes for consent management. The site is optimized for performance with minified CSS/JS and lazy loading techniques. Accessibility and mobile responsiveness are well implemented. No technical debt or deprecated libraries were detected in the provided content. Hosting provider details are not explicitly available. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a professional and scalable online presence with opportunities to enhance hosting transparency and security policy documentation.
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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