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Security report for hostux.social

Mastodon Hostux · Technology · France

Medium risk. 3 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and DNS health.

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Mastodon Hostux is an independent Mastodon social networking instance based in France, established in 2017. It targets users interested in federated social media, privacy, and free software, offering microblogging services within the fediverse. The platform is managed by individuals named alarig and valere and hosts approximately 489 active users. The website uses modern web technologies including Ruby on Rails and React, providing a responsive and user-friendly experience with good content relevance and navigation clarity. However, privacy compliance is basic, with no detected cookie consent or terms of service pages, which may pose regulatory risks in GDPR jurisdictions. Security posture is moderate with HTTPS enforced but lacks DNSSEC and security headers. The domain registration is consistent and legitimate, supporting trust in the platform's authenticity.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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

3 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.

    • 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. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • High

      Weak SPF Policy

      SPF record has permissive policy allowing any server to send email

      What to do: Use -all or ~all qualifier for better email security

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

Keep watching hostux.social

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.

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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
95
Security headers
75
Email security
78
DNS health
70
Network security
40
GDPR outside view
58
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

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 hostux.social, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
239
Employees
0
Customers
239
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
6%

1 subdomain 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 hostux.social.

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

Mastodon Hostux operates as a small-scale, community-driven social network within the federated Mastodon ecosystem. Its competitive advantage lies in its European hosting and focus on privacy and free software enthusiasts. The business model is based on providing free social networking services without advertising or tracking, relying on community trust and open-source software. The platform's growth is steady with nearly 500 active users, and it maintains transparency by naming administrators. The ecosystem includes links to Mastodon's official resources and open-source repositories, indicating alignment with the broader Mastodon community. However, the lack of formal business contact information and compliance documentation may limit institutional partnerships and user trust at scale.

Security posture

The security maturity of Mastodon Hostux is moderate. The site enforces HTTPS and has domain transfer protections in place, but it lacks DNSSEC and important security headers such as Content-Security-Policy. No incident response or security policy information is publicly available, and no vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files were found. The absence of cookie consent mechanisms and terms of service pages indicates gaps in privacy and regulatory compliance. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. Overall, the platform would benefit from enhanced security controls and formalized compliance documentation to improve trust and resilience.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement a comprehensive privacy policy with GDPR compliance and add a cookie consent banner.
  3. Publish terms of service and security policy pages to enhance transparency and legal compliance.
  4. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  5. Establish an incident response contact channel (e.g., security@ or abuse@ email) and publish vulnerability disclosure guidelines.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Mastodon Hostux
Description
European mastodon instance hosted in TH2LF (FR). Also beer, privacy and free software lovers. Join us! This service is managed by alarig and valere.
Key services
Social networking, Microblogging, Federated communication
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Mastodon 4.4.1, Ruby on Rails (implied by rails-ujs), SVG icons, Service Worker (manifest)
Frameworks
Ruby on Rails, React
Platforms
Fediverse (Mastodon)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a Mastodon social network instance with active user engagement
  2. No explicit privacy or cookie consent mechanisms detected despite GDPR relevance
  3. No terms of service page found
  4. WHOIS data shows domain is stable and consistent with business claims
  5. No security headers detected in HTML content but HTTPS is enforced
  6. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly provided on the page
  7. Content is user-generated social posts with diverse topics
  8. No advertising or tracking scripts detected
  9. Site uses modern web technologies including React and Rails
  10. Mobile and accessibility features are basic but functional
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Mastodon version 4.4.1, leveraging Ruby on Rails backend and React frontend technologies. It uses modern JavaScript modules and SVG icons for UI elements, with responsive design supporting mobile devices. Performance is moderate with no major errors or broken elements detected. SEO is basic with standard meta tags and Open Graph data present. Accessibility features are minimal but functional. Hosting is in France, consistent with the domain registration country. The site does not use a traditional CMS but relies on Mastodon's platform. There is no evidence of third-party advertising or tracking scripts, indicating a privacy-conscious technical setup.
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. 58/100Medium19 findingsView report
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