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Security report for hardhat.org

Nomic Foundation · Technology · United States

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Hardhat.org is the official website for Hardhat, an Ethereum development environment designed for professional blockchain developers. Operated by the Nomic Foundation, the platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools including Solidity compilation, local Ethereum network simulation, debugging with Solidity stack traces, and deployment automation via Hardhat Ignition. The website positions Hardhat as a leading solution in the Ethereum developer ecosystem, emphasizing performance improvements through a Rust-powered runtime and multi-chain support. The target audience is primarily Ethereum developers and blockchain professionals seeking efficient and extensible development tools. Technically, the website is built on a modern stack featuring Next.js and React for the frontend, with backend components implemented in Rust for performance. Hosting is provided by Vercel, ensuring fast load times and excellent mobile optimization. The site integrates Google Analytics for user tracking and employs standard SEO and accessibility best practices. Privacy and cookie policies are present with consent mechanisms, reflecting good compliance with GDPR requirements. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and uses domain status locks to prevent unauthorized domain changes. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, and no explicit security or incident response policies are published on the site. The domain is privacy-protected via Domains By Proxy, LLC, which is typical for tech projects and justified here. No critical vulnerabilities or suspicious patterns were detected. Overall, Hardhat.org demonstrates a strong security posture, excellent content quality, and a professional business presence. Recommendations include enabling DNSSEC, publishing a security policy, and providing explicit contact information for security incidents to further enhance trust and compliance.

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. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  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 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

    • 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 hardhat.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.

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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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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
40
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
65
Average
65

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

Hardhat.org serves as the digital presence for Nomic Foundation's flagship Ethereum development environment. The project enjoys a strong market position as a leading tool for Solidity smart contract development, supported by a vibrant open-source community on GitHub and active engagement on social media platforms like Twitter and Discord. The business model revolves around providing open-source developer tools with potential revenue streams from enterprise support or partnerships. The platform's extensible plugin ecosystem and multi-chain simulation capabilities offer competitive advantages. Growth indicators include recent active releases and a well-maintained blog sharing technical insights. Strategic partnerships with services like Alchemy and Etherscan enhance the ecosystem integration. The absence of direct contact information suggests a focus on community-driven support channels.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and domain registration protections in place. The absence of DNSSEC is a minor gap that could be addressed to improve DNS security. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policies are published, which limits transparency for security researchers. The site does not expose sensitive data or use vulnerable libraries based on the analysis. Privacy compliance is supported by clear cookie consent mechanisms and a privacy policy. Incident response readiness is unclear due to lack of published contact channels for security issues. Overall, the security culture appears professional but could benefit from enhanced communication and formalized policies.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to strengthen DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy and vulnerability disclosure page.
  3. Add explicit security incident contact information (e.g., security@ or abuse@ email).
  4. Implement and verify security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options.
  5. Consider publishing terms of service to clarify user and developer obligations.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Nomic Foundation
Description
Hardhat is an Ethereum development environment. Compile your contracts and run them on a development network. Get Solidity stack traces, console.log and more.
Key services
Solidity smart contract compilation, Local Ethereum network simulation, Solidity stack traces and debugging, Testing framework including Solidity and TypeScript tests, Deployment tooling with Hardhat Ignition, Multi-chain simulation support including OP Stack and Base
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
React, Next.js, TypeScript, Rust (backend runtime), Vercel DNS, Google Analytics
Frameworks
Next.js
Platforms
Vercel
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Domain status includes clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional Ethereum development environment platform by Nomic Foundation.
  2. Content is rich with technical details, recent release notes, and blog posts.
  3. Strong presence on GitHub, Twitter, and Discord for community engagement.
  4. Privacy and cookie policies are present with consent mechanisms.
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on the main site.
  6. No terms of service page detected.
  7. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  8. Modern tech stack with Next.js and Rust backend runtime.
  9. Good SEO and accessibility practices observed.
  10. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website leverages a modern and performant technology stack including Next.js and React for frontend rendering, with backend components written in Rust to power the Ethereum simulation runtime. Hosting on Vercel ensures fast global delivery and excellent mobile responsiveness. The integration of Google Analytics provides user behavior insights, balanced with privacy compliance through cookie consent. The site structure is well-organized with comprehensive metadata and Open Graph tags supporting SEO and social sharing. No CMS is detected for the main site, but the blog uses Ghost. The domain is registered with a reputable registrar and protected by privacy services. Overall, the technical implementation supports a high-quality user experience with room for minor security enhancements.
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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