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Security report for hofer.at

HOFER · Retail · Austria

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

50/100

Risk levelMedium

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

HOFER is a large, well-established Austrian retail supermarket chain, operating both physical stores and an online shop. It is a subsidiary of ALDI SÜD GmbH & Co., founded in 1962, and offers a wide range of grocery and household products at competitive prices. The website is professionally designed with excellent content quality, clear navigation, and strong branding consistency, targeting Austrian consumers seeking affordable quality products. The business model focuses on discount retail with a strong online presence and customer engagement through newsletters and live chat support. Technically, the website uses a modern technology stack including Adobe Experience Manager as CMS, Apache server, and integrates multiple third-party services such as Salesforce Live Agent for customer support, Adobe Launch for tag management, and various analytics and marketing tools. The site is hosted on AWS infrastructure with CloudFront CDN, ensuring good performance and mobile optimization. SEO and accessibility features are well implemented. From a security perspective, the site implements several important security headers and a comprehensive Content Security Policy. However, a critical issue is the lack of a valid SSL/TLS certificate and absence of HTTPS support, severely impacting the security posture. No vulnerable libraries or exposed sensitive data were detected, but the missing HTTPS is a major risk. Privacy compliance is strong with clear privacy and cookie policies, user consent mechanisms, and GDPR adherence. Overall, the website is trustworthy and professional but must urgently address the SSL/TLS configuration to secure user data and maintain trust. Strategic improvements in security will enhance the site's credibility and protect customer information.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of hofer.at. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
0/ 100 · Critical
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

6 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

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • 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

  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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. 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"

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

Keep watching hofer.at

This scan found 16 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
0
Security headers
65
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
0
Average
50

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

HOFER holds a strong market position as a leading discount supermarket chain in Austria, leveraging its affiliation with ALDI SÜD. Its competitive advantage lies in offering quality products at low prices, supported by a broad product range and over 530 physical stores. The business model combines traditional retail with an online shop, expanding reach and convenience. Revenue streams include in-store sales, online orders, and associated services like travel and photo printing. The target customers are price-conscious consumers in Austria. The company demonstrates growth through digital transformation, integrating advanced marketing and analytics tools, and maintaining active social media engagement. Partnerships with related domains enhance service offerings. The company’s operations reflect a mature, large-scale retail enterprise with a focus on customer experience and sustainability.

Security posture

The website shows a moderate security maturity level with several best practices in place, including strict transport security, content security policy, XSS protection, and referrer policy headers. The use of a comprehensive CSP reduces risks from cross-site scripting and data injection attacks. However, the absence of a valid SSL/TLS certificate and lack of HTTPS support is a critical vulnerability, exposing users to potential data interception and undermining trust. No known vulnerabilities like Heartbleed, POODLE, or FREAK were detected. The site uses secure forms with validation and integrates CAPTCHA for login. Incident response and vulnerability disclosure information are not found, indicating potential gaps in security governance. Overall, the security posture is weakened by the missing HTTPS but otherwise follows good practices.

Recommendations

  1. Urgently fix SSL/TLS certificate issues and enable HTTPS to secure all communications.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 or 1.3) and strong cipher suites to enhance encryption.
  3. Implement OCSP stapling and session resumption to improve SSL performance and security.
  4. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to improve transparency and incident response.
  5. Maintain and promote privacy compliance with clear data protection officer contact and incident response channels.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
HOFER KG
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Adobe Experience Manager CMS, served by Apache on AWS infrastructure with CloudFront CDN. It uses modern JavaScript libraries including jQuery and Slick Slider for UI components. Tag management and analytics are handled via Adobe Launch, Google Tag Manager, and Tealium. Customer support is integrated through Salesforce Live Agent. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with good SEO practices including meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD). Performance is moderate, with some room for improvement in load times and resource optimization. The technical stack is mature and well-integrated but requires urgent SSL/TLS fixes to avoid security risks that could impact business operations.
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. 87/100Low18 findingsView report
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