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Security report for io-warnemuende.de

Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) · Other · Germany

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

Security score

60/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) is a reputable non-university research institute focused on interdisciplinary marine research, particularly the Baltic Sea ecosystems. It operates under the Leibniz Association umbrella and offers research, data services, and educational activities. The website reflects a medium-sized academic institution with a clear focus on scientific excellence and community engagement. Technically, the site uses a modern CMS (Contao), Bootstrap for responsive design, and Matomo for privacy-conscious analytics. The site is accessible, well-structured, and mobile-optimized, though some SEO and accessibility features could be enhanced. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and email obfuscation but lacks security headers and a cookie consent mechanism, which are recommended for GDPR compliance. Overall, the domain registration and WHOIS data align well with the institute's identity, supporting legitimacy and trustworthiness.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
10/ 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

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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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. 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';…

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Keep watching io-warnemuende.de

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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
62
Security headers
70
Email security
55
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
10
Average
60

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 io-warnemuende.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
10
Employees
0
Customers
4
Third parties
6
Weak passwords
0%

3 subdomains 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 io-warnemuende.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

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Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

IOW holds a strong position in marine research with a focus on the Baltic Sea, supported by memberships in key scientific networks and certifications like Total E-Quality. Its business model is research-driven, likely funded by public and academic sources. The website targets researchers, students, and stakeholders in marine science. The institute maintains a professional online presence with regular news, publications, and project updates, indicating active engagement and growth. Partnerships with the Leibniz Association and other marine research consortia enhance its ecosystem and credibility.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to good security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and email obfuscation to protect contact information. However, the absence of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options reduces defense-in-depth. No visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. The lack of a published security policy or incident response contacts suggests room for improvement in transparency and readiness. GDPR compliance is partial, with a privacy policy present but no cookie consent mechanism. Overall, the security posture is adequate for an academic site but could be enhanced to meet best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Implement standard security headers (CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options) to improve security posture.
  2. Add a cookie consent banner/mechanism to ensure GDPR compliance and user transparency.
  3. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to enhance trust and preparedness.
  4. Consider adding visible company contact emails and phone numbers with obfuscation to improve user accessibility.
  5. Regularly review and update privacy and data protection statements to reflect current practices and regulations.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW)
Description
The IOW is a non-university institute dedicated to interdisciplinary marine research on coastal and marginal seas with a special focus on the ecosystems of the Baltic Sea. It comprises five departments: Physical Oceanography, Marine Chemistry, Biological Oceanography, Marine Geology and Marine Observations. The institute's scientific activities are based on the ten-year research programme ‘Perspectives of Coastal Seas’ with three interdisciplinary research areas.
Key services
Marine research, Research expeditions, Publications, Data services (ODIN 2), Teaching
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Contao Open Source CMS, Bootstrap CSS, jQuery, Matomo Analytics
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Email obfuscation script to protect email addresses

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is professionally presented with clear navigation and multilingual support.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie consent banners detected, which may be a GDPR compliance gap.
  4. Use of Matomo analytics indicates privacy-conscious tracking compared to commercial alternatives.
  5. No visible contact emails in HTML; email obfuscation script used to protect addresses.
  6. No phone numbers or physical addresses explicitly found in the provided HTML content.
  7. Certifications and memberships are prominently displayed, enhancing trust.
  8. No forms detected in the provided HTML content; contact likely via separate contact page.
  9. No security headers detected in the provided data; potential area for improvement.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Contao CMS with Bootstrap for responsive design and jQuery for interactivity. It uses Matomo analytics, indicating a preference for privacy-friendly tracking. The site loads scripts asynchronously and defers non-critical JavaScript, supporting moderate performance. Mobile optimization is good, with responsive CSS and viewport meta tags. Accessibility is basic but could be improved with ARIA landmarks and enhanced keyboard navigation. SEO is basic, with meta description tags present but empty and no Open Graph or JSON-LD structured data detected. The site does not appear to use a CDN or advanced hosting features based on the data provided.
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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