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Security report for hackernoon.com

HackerNoon · Technology · United States

Low risk. 3 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

79/100

Risk levelLow

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

HackerNoon is a well-established technology media platform founded in 2016, offering a free platform for over 25,000 contributing writers and serving over 100 million visitors. It focuses on technology education, user-generated content, and business blogging services, targeting technology enthusiasts, developers, and startup founders. The platform leverages modern web technologies including Next.js and React, hosted and accelerated via Cloudflare CDN, ensuring fast performance and excellent mobile optimization. Privacy compliance is robust with GDPR consent mechanisms implemented via iubenda. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and domain registration consistent with business claims, though explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not publicly disclosed. Overall, HackerNoon demonstrates a mature digital presence with high trustworthiness and professional content quality.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
85/ 100 · Low
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. 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 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 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

  3. 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 SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching hackernoon.com

This scan found 17 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
75
Security headers
65
Email security
75
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
85
Average
79

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention hackernoon.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
6,183
Employees
0
Customers
6,139
Third parties
44
Weak passwords
13%

15 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for hackernoon.com.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

HackerNoon occupies a strong position in the independent technology media market, leveraging a large contributor base and significant visitor traffic. Its business model centers on content creation and business blogging services, appealing to a broad technology audience. The company benefits from partnerships with platforms like Typeform for user engagement and employs advanced analytics and consent management tools. Growth indicators include a large and active community and consistent content updates. The absence of privacy protection in WHOIS and long domain age support legitimacy and stability. Strategic observations suggest opportunities to enhance security transparency and incident response readiness.

Security posture

The website exhibits a solid security posture with HTTPS enabled, use of Cloudflare DNS and CDN, and clientTransferProhibited domain status to prevent unauthorized transfers. GDPR compliance is evident through a consent banner and integration with iubenda. However, the lack of explicit security policy documentation, incident response contacts, and security.txt file represents gaps in transparency and vulnerability management. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the analysis. Security headers are likely present but not explicitly confirmed. Recommendations include enabling DNSSEC, publishing security policies, and establishing clear incident response channels to strengthen security maturity.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Publish a comprehensive security policy and incident response contact information on the website.
  3. Implement and publicly disclose a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability reporting.
  4. Explicitly configure and document security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Content-Type-Options.
  5. Continue maintaining GDPR compliance and enhance transparency around data retention and privacy practices.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
HackerNoon
Description
HackerNoon is a free platform with 25k+ contributing writers. 100M+ humans have visited HackerNoon to learn about technology
Key services
Technology articles, User-contributed content, Business blogging
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
React, Next.js, Cloudflare CDN, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, iubenda Consent Management
Frameworks
Next.js
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • ClientTransferProhibited domain status
  • Cookie consent banner with GDPR compliance
  • Use of Cloudflare for DNS and CDN

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Marketing tools
iubenda Consent Management
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a well-established technology media platform
  2. Strong focus on user-generated content and technology education
  3. Good GDPR compliance with consent management
  4. Use of modern web technologies and CDN for performance
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity
  6. No explicit security policy or incident response info publicly available
Technical notes

Notes

HackerNoon utilizes a modern technology stack centered on React and Next.js, enabling server-side rendering and fast client-side interactivity. The site is hosted behind Cloudflare, providing CDN acceleration and DNS services. Performance is optimized with image preloading, responsive design, and font optimizations. Analytics and marketing tools include Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and iubenda for consent management. The technical implementation reflects a mature and scalable infrastructure with good SEO and accessibility practices. Opportunities exist to further document and enhance security configurations and incident response capabilities.
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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