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Security report for hackclub.com

Hack Club · Education · N/a

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

68/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Hack Club is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering high school students through student-led coding clubs and maker communities. The website serves as a hub for young makers to build technical skills, connect with peers, and engage in impactful projects. Positioned as a leader in educational technology for youth, Hack Club leverages a modern web infrastructure built on React and Next.js, hosted on Vercel, ensuring a fast and responsive user experience. The site demonstrates excellent design quality, clear navigation, and strong branding consistency, appealing directly to its target audience of high school students and educators. From a security perspective, the website benefits from HTTPS enforcement and domain registration protections but lacks advanced DNS security features like DNSSEC and does not publish security policies or incident response contacts. Privacy compliance is limited due to the absence of visible privacy and cookie policies or consent mechanisms, which could pose regulatory risks especially under GDPR. No forms or sensitive data collection points were detected in the provided content, reducing immediate exposure risks. Overall, Hack Club's website is trustworthy and professionally maintained, with a strong focus on community and education. Strategic improvements in privacy compliance, security headers, and vulnerability disclosure would enhance its security posture and regulatory alignment. The domain's long history and consistent registration details support its legitimacy and credibility in the nonprofit education sector.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of hackclub.com. View the latest report

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

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 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

      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 hackclub.com

This scan found 21 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

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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
30
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
68

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

Hack Club operates as a nonprofit educational network focused on high school coding clubs worldwide. Its business model centers on community building and technical education rather than commercial revenue. The organization targets high school students and educators, providing resources and a platform for peer collaboration. The website's market position is strong within the youth coding education niche, supported by a global presence and active social media engagement. The lack of commercial advertising or affiliate programs aligns with its nonprofit status. Growth indicators include a well-established domain since 2001 and a consistent brand identity. Partnerships are implied through social media and DNS/hosting providers but no explicit partner domains were identified. The organization maintains a focused mission with clear service offerings in education and community development.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enabled and domain status flags that prevent unauthorized domain transfers or deletions. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options indicates room for improvement. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the provided content. The lack of published security policies, incident response contacts, or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms suggests limited transparency and preparedness for security incidents. Privacy compliance gaps, including missing privacy and cookie policies, could expose the organization to regulatory scrutiny. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a nonprofit educational site but would benefit from enhanced security controls and compliance documentation.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with GDPR compliance measures.
  3. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  4. Establish and publicize an incident response plan and security contact channels (e.g., security@ or abuse@ emails).
  5. Consider adding a security.txt file and vulnerability disclosure policy to encourage responsible reporting.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Hack Club
Description
Hack Club is a global nonprofit network of high school makers & student-led coding clubs where young people build the agency, the network, & the technical talent to think big & do big things in the world.
Key services
Student-led coding clubs, Community building for young makers, Technical education and talent development
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Next.js, React, Vercel, Squarespace Domains, DNSimple
Frameworks
React, Next.js
Platforms
Vercel
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced (implied by URL)
  • Domain status includes clientDeleteProhibited and clientTransferProhibited

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 well-established nonprofit educational platform for high school coding clubs.
  2. No privacy or cookie policies found, which is a compliance gap.
  3. No visible forms detected in the HTML snippet; likely uses external or JavaScript-based forms.
  4. Social media presence is strong with official accounts linked in structured data.
  5. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  6. No incident response or security contact emails found.
  7. No advertising or tracking scripts detected in the provided HTML.
  8. Website uses modern React/Next.js stack hosted on Vercel.
  9. No suspicious or malicious content detected.
  10. No phone numbers or physical addresses explicitly found in the provided content.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using a modern React and Next.js framework, hosted on Vercel, which provides fast performance and excellent mobile optimization. The use of structured data (JSON-LD) enhances SEO and provides clear business information to search engines. The site uses DNSimple for DNS management and Squarespace Domains as the registrar. No CMS was detected, indicating a custom or headless architecture. The site demonstrates good accessibility and SEO practices but lacks some security headers and privacy compliance features. No analytics or tracking scripts were identified in the provided content, suggesting minimal user tracking. Overall, the technical infrastructure is robust and modern, supporting a high-quality user experience with opportunities to strengthen security and compliance.
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. 69/100Medium28 findingsView report
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