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Security report for joanneum.at

JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH · Technology · Austria

High risk. 8 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

33/100

Risk levelHigh

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

JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH is a leading Austrian research institution specializing in applied research and technology development across multiple sectors including healthcare, digital technologies, robotics, and environmental sciences. The organization serves industry, government, and research partners with innovative solutions and maintains a strong market position supported by international collaborations and a large workforce. The website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive content and professional design, targeting stakeholders in research and industry. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with Elementor and uses modern web technologies, but suffers from a critical lack of HTTPS due to an invalid SSL certificate, which significantly impacts its security posture. Privacy and cookie policies are well implemented, indicating good GDPR compliance. However, the absence of explicit security policies and incident response information suggests room for improvement in security governance. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professional but requires urgent security enhancements to protect user data and improve trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
0/ 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

8 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

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

  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 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"

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

Keep watching joanneum.at

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

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

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Full report

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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
15
Email security
50
DNS health
90
Network security
40
GDPR outside view
0
Average
33

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 company operates as an essential entity in the technology and research sector, focusing on innovation and applied research. Its business model revolves around providing research services, technology development, and product innovation to a broad range of industries including healthcare, energy, and transportation. The organization is large-sized with over 500 employees and multiple locations in Austria. It holds several certifications that reinforce its credibility and quality standards. The website indicates active engagement with the community through events, news, and social media. Partnerships with media and technology firms are evident, enhancing its ecosystem. The company’s market positioning is strong within Austria and internationally, supported by a clear branding strategy and consistent messaging. Revenue streams likely include research grants, contracts, and technology licensing. The target audience includes industry partners, government bodies, and academic institutions.

Security posture

The current security posture is weak due to the absence of a valid SSL/TLS certificate, resulting in no HTTPS support. This exposes the website and its users to potential interception and data integrity risks. Additional security best practices such as HSTS, OCSP stapling, and modern TLS protocols are not implemented. The site does not disclose any security policies or incident response procedures, which limits transparency and preparedness for security incidents. No vulnerabilities such as subdomain takeover or known exploits were detected, but the lack of secure transport is a critical issue. The presence of a valid SPF record for email helps reduce spoofing risks. Overall, the security maturity is low and requires immediate remediation to meet modern security standards and regulatory compliance.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and install a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Configure HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload options.
  3. Enable OCSP stapling to improve certificate revocation checks and reduce latency.
  4. Disable legacy SSL/TLS protocols and enable TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 with strong cipher suites.
  5. Implement security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  6. Publish a security policy and incident response plan on the website to improve transparency.
  7. Regularly audit and update third-party plugins and libraries to avoid vulnerabilities.
  8. Enhance privacy compliance by clearly listing data retention policies and DPO contact information.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
Technical notes

Notes

The website is hosted on a dedicated IP (136.243.176.73) likely provided by Hetzner, running nginx as the web server. It uses WordPress CMS with Elementor page builder and several plugins including Rank Math PRO for SEO, Borlabs Cookie for consent management, Friendly Captcha for spam protection, and Real3D Flipbook for content presentation. The site loads multiple CSS and JS assets from its own domain and uses modern JavaScript libraries such as React, Lodash, and Underscore. Performance metrics are not available but the page size and resource count are zero in the provided data, indicating possible measurement issues or caching. The site is mobile optimized and accessible with an accessibility toolbar. SEO is well addressed with meta tags, Open Graph, Twitter cards, and JSON-LD structured data. However, the lack of HTTPS and security headers is a significant technical risk. The DNS configuration includes multiple authoritative nameservers and a valid SPF record for email authentication. No DNSSEC is enabled. Overall, the technical infrastructure is modern but security configuration is incomplete.
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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