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Security report for icos-cp.eu

Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) · Energy · N/a

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in Security headers and SSL/TLS.

Security score

78/100

Risk levelLow

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

ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) is a European research infrastructure dedicated to providing standardized greenhouse gas measurements across Europe. It operates a network of stations in atmosphere, ecosystem, and ocean domains coordinated by national networks in 16 member countries. The organization supports climate science, policy-making, and societal impact through open data and community services. The website reflects a mature digital presence with a modern Drupal 10 CMS, responsive design, and integration of analytics tools such as Matomo. It offers comprehensive resources, data portals, and educational materials targeting scientists, policy-makers, and the general public. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforcement and cookie consent mechanisms, though explicit security headers and policies could be improved. WHOIS data is privacy protected, which is justified for this type of research infrastructure. Overall, ICOS demonstrates a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy regulations.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
88/ 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

2 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  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.

    • 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';…

  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 icos-cp.eu

This scan found 19 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

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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
62
Security headers
55
Email security
80
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
88
Average
78

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

ICOS holds a key position in the European environmental research sector, providing essential data for climate science and policy. Its business model is non-profit and focused on open data dissemination and community collaboration. The organization benefits from partnerships with thematic centers and national networks, enhancing its data quality and reach. The website's clear segmentation for different audiences (scientists, policy-makers, community, public) indicates a well-thought-out engagement strategy. The presence of projects like ICOS Cities and NUBICOS highlights ongoing innovation and expansion. The lack of direct company contact emails or phone numbers suggests a preference for controlled communication channels via web forms, typical for research infrastructures.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS with a valid SSL configuration and uses Matomo for privacy-respecting analytics. Cookie consent is implemented, indicating GDPR awareness. However, no explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options were detected in the HTML content, which could enhance protection against common web attacks. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy is present, which could improve transparency and incident response readiness. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were found. Overall, the security posture is good but could be strengthened with additional headers and published security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options to enhance web security.
  2. Create and maintain a security policy page and a vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file to improve transparency and incident response.
  3. Consider providing direct company contact emails or phone numbers for security and compliance inquiries to improve trust and communication.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and analytics tools to ensure no privacy or security risks.
  5. Enhance WHOIS transparency if possible, or provide official registrant information on the website to improve business credibility.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS)
Description
ICOS is a European research infrastructure providing standardised greenhouse gas measurements throughout Europe. It operates a network of stations in three domains: Atmosphere, Ecosystem, and Ocean, coordinated by national networks in 16 member countries. ICOS supports climate science, policy making, and societal impact through open data and services.
Key services
Greenhouse gas observational data, Data portal and elaborated products, Thematic centres (Atmosphere, Ecosystem, Ocean), Community cooperation tools, Educational and outreach resources
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Bootstrap 5.3.2, FontAwesome 6.7.2, Matomo Analytics, Jupyter Notebook (linked service), Python package (icoscp)
Frameworks
Drupal CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No vulnerable libraries detected

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Marketing tools
Matomo 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 no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is rich, well-structured, and professionally presented.
  3. Strong focus on scientific data and open access.
  4. Comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanism.
  5. No direct company contact emails or phone numbers found; contact via forms.
  6. Use of modern web technologies and analytics tools.
  7. Social media presence across multiple platforms.
  8. No security.txt or explicit security policy found.
  9. WHOIS data is privacy protected with no public registrant info.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10 CMS with Bootstrap 5.3.2 and FontAwesome 6.7.2 for UI components and icons. It uses Matomo analytics hosted on a subdomain for user tracking with a cookie consent banner for GDPR compliance. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features such as skip links. External resources are loaded from trusted CDNs and internal subdomains. Performance is moderate with asynchronous script loading. The site architecture supports multiple user roles and data portals, indicating a complex and well-maintained infrastructure. No hosting provider details were found in the content. The technical stack is modern and appropriate for a research infrastructure website.
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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