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Security report for lemm.ee

LemmyNet · Technology · N/a

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

55/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Lemmy is an open source, federated forum and link aggregation platform designed for the fediverse. It enables users to join or host servers that interconnect, allowing discussions and content sharing across different instances. The project is community-driven, licensed under AGPL, and emphasizes privacy, censorship resistance, and user control. The website presents a modern, clean design with clear navigation and mobile-friendly features, targeting users interested in decentralized social platforms. Technically, Lemmy leverages a robust stack including Rust, Actix, Diesel, Inferno, and TypeScript, ensuring fast performance and scalability. Security posture is moderate with HTTPS enabled and domain transfer protection, but lacks advanced security headers and formal policies. Privacy compliance is limited by absence of explicit privacy and cookie policies. Overall, Lemmy demonstrates a credible and trustworthy presence in the open source social platform niche, with room for improvement in formal privacy and security documentation.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
50/ 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

6 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 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';…

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

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

Keep watching lemm.ee

This scan found 23 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
85
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
70
Network security
40
GDPR outside view
50
Average
55

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

Lemmy operates in the technology sector as a small, open source project focused on federated social networking. Its business model centers on community contributions and donations rather than commercial revenue. The platform targets privacy-conscious users and communities seeking alternatives to centralized social media. Lemmy's competitive advantage lies in its federation capability and open source licensing, fostering a decentralized ecosystem. The project maintains transparency through GitHub and documentation, with a growing ecosystem including mobile apps and internationalization support. Partnerships or subsidiaries are not evident, reflecting its community-driven nature. Growth potential is linked to the broader fediverse adoption and demand for censorship-resistant platforms.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and domain transfer protection, indicating baseline security awareness. However, it lacks implementation of common security headers such as Content Security Policy, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options, which could mitigate common web attacks. No security policy, incident response contacts, or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are published, limiting transparency and readiness for security incidents. The absence of privacy and cookie policies also suggests incomplete compliance with GDPR and related regulations. The use of Plausible Analytics reflects a privacy-conscious approach to user tracking. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but would benefit from formalized policies and enhanced technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie policy with consent mechanisms to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Implement standard security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options) to enhance web security posture.
  3. Establish and publish a security policy and vulnerability disclosure program including security.txt.
  4. Provide direct contact information for incident response and data protection officer if applicable.
  5. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to strengthen DNS security and prevent spoofing.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
LemmyNet
Description
Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform. It is completely free and open, and not controlled by any company. Content is organized into communities, allowing users to subscribe to topics of interest and ignore others. Voting is used to highlight interesting content.
Key services
Forum and link aggregation, Self-hosted server software, Federation with other servers, Mobile apps for iOS and Android
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Rust, Actix, Diesel, Inferno, TypeScript
Frameworks
Actix, Inferno
Platforms
Web, iOS, Android
Performance
fast
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
65/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Client transfer prohibited domain status

Analytics and tracking

Services
Plausible Analytics
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
plausible
Transparency
excellent

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is an open source federated social platform with clear technical stack and community focus.
  2. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found on main site.
  3. Contact available only via contact form, no direct emails or phone numbers found.
  4. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy detected.
  5. Uses modern technologies and frameworks with good performance and mobile optimization.
  6. Minimal tracking via privacy-respecting Plausible Analytics.
  7. No advertising or affiliate marketing detected.
  8. WHOIS data shows privacy protection but no suspicious indicators.
  9. No WAF or blocking detected; content fully accessible.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using modern, high-performance technologies including Rust for backend services and Inferno with TypeScript for frontend rendering. It supports federation protocols enabling decentralized communication across servers. The site is mobile optimized and uses a clean, responsive design. Hosting is via NameCheap with domain privacy protection. Analytics are handled by Plausible, a privacy-focused service. Performance is fast with minimal external dependencies. However, the site lacks advanced SEO and accessibility features and does not implement security headers. There is no CMS detected, consistent with a custom-built platform. Technical debt appears low, but formal security and privacy documentation are missing, representing modernization opportunities.
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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