Skip to main content

Security report for ifes.at

Institut für empirische Sozialforschung · Education · Austria

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Institut für empirische Sozialforschung (IFES) is an Austrian research institute specializing in empirical social research. The website serves as an informational platform primarily targeting academic and research audiences interested in social science studies. The business model appears to focus on providing research and consultancy services in the social sciences sector. The website is built on WordPress using the Divi theme, indicating a moderate level of digital maturity with basic mobile optimization and SEO features. However, the site lacks comprehensive privacy, cookie, and terms of service policies, which are critical for compliance and user trust. Security posture is minimal with no detected security headers or incident response information, suggesting room for improvement in protecting user data and ensuring regulatory compliance. Overall, the website is functional but basic in design and content quality, with moderate trustworthiness based on WHOIS data and domain legitimacy.

Scanned

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

7 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

  2. 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 Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • 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';…

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

Keep watching ifes.at

This scan found 25 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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. See sample alerts.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
72
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
28
Average
61

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 IFES website positions the institute as a niche player in the education sector focused on social research. Its competitive advantage lies in specialized empirical research services. The business model likely relies on academic partnerships and consultancy projects. The absence of detailed business information, certifications, or trust signals limits the ability to fully assess market positioning and growth indicators. No evident partnerships or subsidiaries are linked from the website. The target customer segments are likely academic institutions, government bodies, and social scientists. The website's content and structure suggest a small-sized organization with a focused operational scope.

Security posture

The website currently exhibits a low security maturity level. There are no visible security headers such as Content Security Policy, HSTS, or X-Frame-Options, which are standard best practices. SSL/TLS configuration details are not provided, but HTTPS is assumed given the URL. There is no evidence of vulnerability disclosure policies or incident response contacts, which are important for transparency and rapid mitigation of security incidents. The lack of privacy and cookie policies also indicates compliance gaps with GDPR and related regulations. No analytics or tracking scripts were detected, which reduces privacy risks but also limits user behavior insights. Overall, the security posture is basic and requires enhancements to meet modern standards and regulatory requirements.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to ensure GDPR compliance and build user trust.
  2. Add standard security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-XSS-Protection) to improve security posture.
  3. Provide clear contact information including emails and phone numbers for general and security incident reporting.
  4. Establish a vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact channels to enhance transparency and readiness.
  5. Optimize website performance and mobile responsiveness to improve user experience and SEO rankings.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Institut für empirische Sozialforschung
Description
Institut für empirische Sozialforschung (IFES) is an institute focused on empirical social research, likely providing research services and studies in social sciences.
Key services
empirical social research, data analysis, social studies
Content quality
basic
Branding
moderate

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, jQuery (custom implementation)
Frameworks
Divi Theme (WordPress)
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
basic
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is built on WordPress using Divi theme
  2. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided content
  4. No security or incident response policies visible
  5. No analytics or tracking scripts detected
  6. Content is primarily in German language
  7. Website appears to be informational for a social research institute
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress using the Divi theme, a popular and flexible CMS platform. The tech stack includes custom JavaScript and a custom jQuery implementation. The site uses standard HTML and CSS with inline styles and responsive design elements, but mobile optimization is basic. No advanced frameworks or modern JavaScript libraries were detected. Performance appears moderate but could benefit from optimization. There is no evidence of CDN usage or advanced caching mechanisms beyond the mention of W3 Total Cache plugin scripts. Accessibility features are minimal, and SEO optimization is basic with meta tags present but no structured data or Open Graph tags detected. Technical risks include outdated libraries and lack of security headers, which could expose the site to common web vulnerabilities.
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

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with ifes.at. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review ifes.at.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.