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Security report for isa.org

International Society of Automation · Manufacturing · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

51/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The International Society of Automation (ISA) is a well-established non-profit professional association focused on industrial automation. It serves a global audience of engineers, technicians, and management professionals by providing standards, certifications, training, and events. The organization holds a strong market position as a trusted source for automation standards and technical resources. The website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive content, clear navigation, and consistent branding. Technically, the site uses Microsoft IIS with ASP.NET MVC and Kentico CMS, integrating modern JavaScript libraries and Google Tag Manager for analytics. However, the security posture is weakened by the absence of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols, which are critical for secure communications. Privacy policies and terms of service are well documented, though cookie consent mechanisms appear lacking. Overall, the site is professional and trustworthy but requires urgent improvements in SSL/TLS configuration to enhance security and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
18/ 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

5 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

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • 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. 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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

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

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

Keep watching isa.org

This scan found 16 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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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

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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
0
Security headers
55
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
18
Average
51

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

ISA operates as a large non-profit entity in the manufacturing and technology sectors, focusing on automation standards and professional development. Its revenue streams likely include membership fees, certification programs, training courses, and event sponsorships. The organization targets professionals and organizations in industrial automation worldwide. ISA maintains partnerships with subsidiary entities like the ISA Global Cybersecurity Alliance and uses platforms such as Salesforce for member management. The presence of multiple social media channels and a top-rated nonprofit badge indicates strong community engagement and reputation. The business model emphasizes knowledge sharing, standards development, and professional certification, positioning ISA as a key player in the automation industry.

Security posture

The website demonstrates some security best practices such as setting security headers (Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options) and secure cookie flags. However, the lack of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols represent significant vulnerabilities, exposing users to potential data interception and undermining trust. The absence of HSTS enforcement and OCSP stapling further weakens the security posture. No known critical vulnerabilities like Heartbleed or POODLE are present. Privacy policies are comprehensive, but the lack of a cookie consent mechanism may pose compliance risks under GDPR. Incident response contact information is not explicitly provided. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but requires immediate remediation of SSL/TLS issues to meet industry standards.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS and secure user communications.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable deprecated versions to enhance security.
  3. Implement HSTS with includeSubDomains and preload directives to prevent protocol downgrade attacks.
  4. Add a cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  5. Publish explicit incident response and vulnerability disclosure contacts to improve security transparency.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
International Society of Automation
Technical notes

Notes

The website is hosted on Microsoft IIS 10.0 and built using ASP.NET MVC 5.2 on .NET Framework 4.0. It uses Kentico CMS for content management and integrates popular JavaScript libraries including jQuery and Popper.js. Google Tag Manager is used for analytics and marketing tracking. DNS is managed via Cloudflare, providing DNS resilience. Despite a modern tech stack, the site suffers from poor SSL/TLS configuration, which impacts security and potentially performance. The page size and resource count data are missing, but the site appears to have moderate performance and good mobile optimization. Accessibility is basic, with room for improvement. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags and Open Graph data. Overall, the technical infrastructure is solid but requires security upgrades and performance tuning.
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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