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Security report for mare-centre.pt

MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente · Education · Portugal

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and Security headers.

Security score

66/100

Risk levelMedium

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

MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente is a Portuguese national research center focused on marine and environmental sciences. It operates as a scientific research, technological development, and innovation hub with a broad territorial presence in Portugal. The center targets academic researchers, students, and environmental stakeholders, offering educational programs and engaging in collaborative projects with national and international partners. The website reflects a well-structured and professionally designed platform built on Drupal 7, featuring multilingual support and integration with social media and analytics tools. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS enabled and IP anonymization in analytics, but lacks advanced security headers and explicit privacy compliance mechanisms such as cookie consent. Contact information is limited on the website, and no dedicated security or incident response policies are published. Overall, the site is trustworthy and serves its educational and research mission effectively.

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

  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 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';…

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Keep watching mare-centre.pt

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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
90
Security headers
35
Email security
85
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
10
Average
66

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 organization holds a strong position in the Portuguese marine and environmental research sector, leveraging partnerships with funding bodies like FCT, Portugal 2020, and European programs such as Horizon 2020 and ERC. Its business model centers on research excellence, education, and public engagement. The website's content and structure support these goals, with clear navigation to research domains, educational offerings, and events. The presence of multiple social media channels enhances outreach and community engagement. However, the absence of direct contact details and limited privacy compliance features may impact user trust and regulatory adherence. The center's digital maturity is moderate, with opportunities to modernize the CMS and improve security and privacy practices.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate and integrates Google Analytics with IP anonymization, indicating awareness of privacy concerns. However, the lack of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security reduces the overall security posture. No vulnerability disclosure or incident response information is available, which may hinder timely reporting and mitigation of security issues. The Drupal 7 CMS is outdated and may pose security risks if not regularly patched. Forms on the site are minimal and do not appear to collect sensitive data, reducing immediate risk. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but could be significantly improved with updated CMS, enhanced headers, and published security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive cookie consent and privacy banners to ensure GDPR compliance.
  2. Add security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and readiness.
  4. Upgrade the Drupal CMS to a supported version to mitigate known vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance contact information visibility to improve user trust and communication.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
Description
Centro de investigação científica, desenvolvimento tecnológico e inovação com foco em ecossistemas aquáticos, bacias hidrográficas, sistemas costeiros e oceano, abordando desafios sociais e ambientais.
Key services
Scientific research, Technological development, Innovation projects, Educational programs (masters, doctorates, advanced courses), Public engagement and outreach, Event organization
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 7, jQuery 1.12, Google Analytics, Facebook SDK, Bootstrap, FontAwesome, MathJax
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • IP anonymization in Google Analytics
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Facebook SDK
Marketing tools
Facebook SDK
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally maintained research center site using Drupal 7.
  2. Content is in Portuguese with English language option available.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie consent banners found, indicating partial GDPR compliance.
  4. Social media presence is strong with official accounts on major platforms.
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on the main page or footer.
  6. Security headers are not explicitly visible; HTTPS is enabled.
  7. No vulnerability disclosure or security policy pages detected.
  8. Site uses Google Analytics with IP anonymization enabled.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 7, utilizing jQuery 1.12, Bootstrap, FontAwesome, and MathJax for content rendering and UI components. It integrates Google Analytics and Facebook SDK for analytics and social media features. The site is mobile responsive with good SEO practices including meta tags and Open Graph data. Performance is moderate, with multiple CSS and JS imports that could be optimized. Accessibility features are basic but present. The hosting provider is not explicitly identified. The technical stack is stable but dated, with modernization opportunities to improve security and performance.
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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