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Security report for humanrightswatch.org

Human Rights Watch · Non-profit · N/a

Low risk. No critical or high findings.

Security score

86/100

Risk levelLow

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

Human Rights Watch is a globally recognized non-profit organization dedicated to defending human rights in over 100 countries. The website serves as a comprehensive platform for advocacy, research, and public mobilization, featuring news, reports, videos, and multilingual support. The organization maintains a strong market position as a leading human rights watchdog with a large global audience. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 10, employs modern analytics and tracking tools, and demonstrates excellent performance and mobile optimization. Security posture is robust with HTTPS, security headers, and consent mechanisms, though explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not publicly disclosed. Overall, the domain appears legitimate despite privacy-protected WHOIS data, consistent with a non-profit's need for privacy. The site is safe, professional, and trustworthy.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
83/ 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

No critical or high findings. These medium findings are worth fixing next.

  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.

    • Medium

      Missing X-XSS-Protection header

      Legacy XSS protection (deprecated but still recommended)

      What to do: Add "X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block"

    • Medium

      Missing Permissions-Policy header

      Controls browser features and APIs

      What to do: Implement a Permissions-Policy to restrict feature access

      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Permissions-Policy: accelerometer=(), autoplay=(), camera=(), cross-origin-isolated=(),…

  2. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • Medium

      Privacy policy may not be GDPR compliant

      Privacy policy lacks explicit GDPR compliance elements

      What to do: Update privacy policy to explicitly address GDPR requirements and user rights

  3. 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.

    • Medium

      No DKIM record found

      DKIM adds cryptographic signatures to emails

      What to do: Configure DKIM with your email provider

    • Medium

      No MTA-STS Policy

      MTA-STS enforces TLS for email delivery

      What to do: Implement MTA-STS to prevent downgrade attacks

Keep watching humanrightswatch.org

This scan found 13 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

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
95
Security headers
75
Email security
70
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
83
Average
86

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

Human Rights Watch operates in the non-profit sector focusing on human rights advocacy and research. Its business model revolves around investigative reporting, publishing detailed reports, and mobilizing public and governmental action. The organization targets a global audience interested in human rights issues. The website reflects a mature digital presence with multilingual content and extensive resources. Partnerships and donation platforms are integrated, supporting its funding model. The lack of direct contact emails or phone numbers is typical for such organizations, relying instead on contact forms and donation portals. The domain's privacy protection aligns with standard practices for non-profits to safeguard registrant information.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS with strong SSL configuration and includes essential security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security. Consent mechanisms for cookies are implemented, indicating GDPR compliance. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a published security policy, incident response plan, or vulnerability disclosure program limits transparency. No direct security contact channels (e.g., security@ or abuse@ emails) were found. Overall, the security posture is strong but could be enhanced by publishing explicit security governance documents and contact information.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response plan on the website to improve transparency and trust.
  2. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting of security issues.
  3. Provide direct security contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses for incident reporting.
  4. Enhance privacy compliance disclosures by detailing data retention policies and user rights more explicitly.
  5. Continue maintaining and updating technical infrastructure to ensure ongoing performance and security improvements.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Human Rights Watch
Description
Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people in 100 countries worldwide, spotlighting abuses and bringing perpetrators to justice
Key services
Human rights investigations, Publishing reports, Advocacy and mobilization
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Lite YouTube embed, Simple Analytics
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Consent mechanism for cookies
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Simple Analytics
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and multimedia
  2. Strong focus on human rights advocacy and global issues
  3. Multiple language support with clear navigation
  4. Use of modern web technologies and analytics
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  6. No direct contact emails or phone numbers publicly listed, but contact form available
  7. No explicit security or incident response contact information found
  8. WHOIS data is privacy protected or unavailable
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS, ensuring a solid foundation for content management and security. It uses Google Tag Manager and Simple Analytics for tracking and analytics, balancing data collection with privacy considerations. The site loads quickly and is optimized for mobile devices, with accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA labels. The use of Lite YouTube embeds improves performance by lazy loading videos. No deprecated or vulnerable libraries were detected in the provided HTML. The technical setup supports a high-quality user experience and robust security posture, though hosting provider details are not explicitly identified.
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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