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Security report for irrawaddy.com

The Irrawaddy · Media · N/a

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Irrawaddy is a professional news media organization focused on delivering news and analysis about Myanmar and Southeast Asia. The website offers a variety of content including news articles, opinion columns, interviews, and video reports, positioning itself as a regional leader in its niche. The digital infrastructure is built on WordPress with popular plugins such as Elementor and Yoast SEO, indicating a modern and maintainable platform. The site integrates Google Adsense for monetization and Google Tag Manager for analytics, reflecting standard digital marketing practices. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS enabled and secure form handling, but lacks advanced security headers and explicit privacy or cookie policies, which are important for compliance and user trust. The absence of WHOIS data for the domain raises some concerns about domain registration transparency, although the active and professional nature of the website mitigates this to some extent. Overall, the site is functional, content-rich, and moderately secure but would benefit from enhanced privacy compliance and security best practices.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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

4 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 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 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. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

  3. 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 SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching irrawaddy.com

This scan found 18 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
75
Security headers
55
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
74

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 Irrawaddy operates as a media publisher specializing in Myanmar and Southeast Asia political and social issues. Its business model relies on content publishing, advertising revenue via Google Adsense, and likely donations or subscriptions as indicated by a donation page link. The target audience includes general readers interested in regional news and political developments. The site maintains consistent branding and professional content quality, which supports its market position as a trusted regional news source. The lack of explicit business contact information and WHOIS transparency could be improved to enhance credibility. The partnership ecosystem is not evident from the data, and no related or subsidiary domains were identified. Growth indicators include active content updates and integration of modern web technologies.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic to moderate security posture. HTTPS is properly implemented, ensuring encrypted communications. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection reduces protection against common web attacks. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policies are present, limiting transparency and incident response readiness. No contact channels for security incidents were found. The site uses third-party scripts including Google Adsense and Tag Manager, which require regular auditing to prevent supply chain risks. Overall, while no critical vulnerabilities were detected, the site should enhance its security framework and compliance to reduce risk exposure.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with explicit user consent mechanisms to comply with GDPR and other regulations.
  2. Add and configure security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection to strengthen web security.
  3. Publish a security.txt file and establish clear vulnerability disclosure and incident response procedures with dedicated contact channels.
  4. Improve WHOIS transparency by ensuring domain registration details are accurate and publicly available to enhance trust.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and plugins to mitigate risks from vulnerable components.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The Irrawaddy
Description
Covering Myanmar and Southeast Asia News, especially politics, ethnic issues and others shaping Myanmar today.
Key services
news reporting, opinion pieces, video content, special reports
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Elementor, Yoast SEO, jQuery, Google Adsense, Google Tag Manager
Frameworks
Elementor
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • secure search forms

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Adsense
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional news media outlet focused on Myanmar and Southeast Asia.
  2. Content is rich with news articles, opinion pieces, and video content.
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided HTML.
  4. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies explicitly found or linked.
  5. Uses WordPress CMS with Elementor and Yoast SEO plugins.
  6. Includes Google Adsense ads and Google Tag Manager for analytics.
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  8. No explicit security headers detected in the provided data.
  9. WHOIS data is missing or unavailable, which is unusual for an active domain.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS using Elementor for page building and Yoast SEO for search engine optimization. It employs jQuery and other JavaScript libraries for interactive features. Google Adsense is used for monetization, and Google Tag Manager facilitates analytics and marketing tags. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and includes structured data (JSON-LD) for enhanced SEO. Performance is moderate, with some lazy loading of images and asynchronous script loading. Accessibility features are basic but present. The technical stack is modern and widely supported, though there is room for improvement in security configurations and privacy compliance.
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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