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Security report for hereon.de

Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon · Energy · Germany

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon is a prominent German research center specializing in climate, coastal, material, and technology research. It operates under the Helmholtz Association and serves a scientific and policy-oriented audience. The website is professionally designed with a clear structure and good navigation, supporting both German and English languages. The technical infrastructure is based on the IMPERIA CMS and Foundation CSS framework, providing moderate performance and good mobile optimization. Security posture is moderate with HTTPS likely enabled but lacking explicit security headers and policies. Privacy compliance is weak due to missing privacy and cookie policies. Overall, the site reflects a credible and established research institution but would benefit from enhanced security and privacy disclosures.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of hereon.de. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
28/ 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

4 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.

    • Critical

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

    • 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

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

Keep watching hereon.de

This scan found 23 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

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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
70
Email security
75
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
28
Average
69

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 holds a strong market position as a large research institution within Germany's energy and environmental sectors. Its business model focuses on scientific research and development, supported by government and research grants. The website indicates a broad partnership ecosystem, including the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS). The content and structure suggest a focus on transparency and collaboration with the scientific community. Growth indicators include extensive project listings and multiple specialized institutes. However, the lack of explicit contact information and privacy policies may limit user engagement and trust.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic security posture with HTTPS likely enabled but lacks visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is provided, which may hinder rapid response to security issues. The absence of privacy and cookie policies indicates compliance gaps with GDPR and related regulations. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the provided content. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but requires improvements in policy transparency and technical safeguards.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  3. Provide clear contact information including emails and phone numbers for general and security incident reporting.
  4. Establish and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy and security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Conduct a security audit to verify SSL/TLS configuration and ensure no vulnerable libraries or scripts are in use.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
Description
Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon is a large research center of the Helmholtz Association headquartered in Geesthacht, Germany, focusing on climate research, coastal research, new technologies, and material research.
Key services
Climate research, Coastal research, Material research, Technology development, Scientific publications
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
HTML5, CSS (Foundation framework), JavaScript
Frameworks
Foundation CSS framework
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
50/100

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a large, well-structured research center site with extensive navigation and content.
  2. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies explicitly found in the provided HTML.
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided content.
  4. No security or incident response policies or contacts found.
  5. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found.
  6. No analytics or advertising scripts detected in the provided snippet.
  7. CMS identified as IMPERIA 10.5.4.
  8. Site uses Foundation CSS framework and custom JavaScript.
  9. Content is primarily in German with English language option.
  10. No adult or questionable content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses the IMPERIA CMS version 10.5.4 and the Foundation CSS framework, indicating a mature but somewhat traditional technology stack. JavaScript is used for UI interactions such as search toggling. The site is mobile optimized and includes print stylesheets. Performance appears moderate with no explicit indicators of slow loading. SEO is supported by meta tags and Open Graph data. Accessibility is basic with some screen reader text elements. There is no evidence of modern JavaScript frameworks or advanced analytics tools in the provided content. Technical risks include potential outdated CMS components and lack of advanced security headers.
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. 67/100Medium32 findingsView report
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hereon.de security report: 69/100, medium risk | Guard