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Security report for narkive.com

Technology · N/a

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Narkive.com is a niche technology website providing a comprehensive archive and search engine for Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists. Established in 2009, it hosts over 315 million threads and 1 billion messages, targeting users interested in historical and technical discussions. The site operates on a basic ad-supported model, leveraging Google Adsense and Analytics for monetization and user tracking. Technically, the site uses older JavaScript libraries such as jQuery 1.11.2 and is hosted with OVH as registrar and Cloudflare for DNS services. While HTTPS is enabled, DNSSEC is not, and no advanced security headers are present, indicating moderate security posture. Privacy compliance is minimal, lacking cookie consent mechanisms despite tracking scripts. No contact or company information is provided, limiting business credibility. Overall, the site is functional and content-rich but would benefit from improved security practices and privacy compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
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

9 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 narkive.com

This scan found 21 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
72
Security headers
15
Email security
80
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
65

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention narkive.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
316
Employees
0
Customers
247
Third parties
69
Weak passwords
27%

9 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for narkive.com.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

Narkive occupies a specialized market niche as an archive for Usenet and mailing list content, serving a community of technical users and researchers. Its competitive advantage lies in the volume and accessibility of archived discussions. The business model appears to be free access supported by advertising revenue. The absence of clear business contact details and certifications suggests a small-scale operation. The site’s partnership ecosystem is limited, with no visible related domains or partners. Growth indicators are unclear due to lack of public business information. Strategic observations include the need to enhance trust signals and compliance to attract a broader user base and potential partnerships.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic security posture with HTTPS enabled and domain status flags set to prevent unauthorized transfers or deletions. However, the lack of DNSSEC, absence of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options, and use of outdated JavaScript libraries present potential vulnerabilities. Privacy compliance is weak, with no cookie consent mechanism despite use of Google Analytics and Adsense, posing GDPR compliance risks. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies are published, limiting transparency and readiness. The site does not expose sensitive data in the HTML content, but improvements are needed to align with modern security best practices and regulatory requirements.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement standard security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Add a cookie consent banner and privacy policy updates to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  4. Publish clear contact information and security incident response policies to improve trust and transparency.
  5. Update JavaScript libraries to current versions to mitigate known vulnerabilities and improve performance.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Description
An archive and search engine for Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists, providing access to a large volume of threaded discussions and messages.
Key services
Usenet newsgroup archiving, Mailing list archiving, Search and browsing of archived threads
Content quality
good
Branding
moderate

Technology

Stack
jQuery 1.11.2, Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Cloudflare DNS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
basic
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
55/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status clientDeleteProhibited and clientTransferProhibited set

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Adsense
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website provides a large archive of Usenet and mailing list threads with over 315 million threads and 1 billion messages.
  2. No visible contact information or company details on the site.
  3. No privacy or cookie consent banners detected despite use of Google Analytics and Adsense.
  4. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  5. Site uses Cloudflare DNS but does not enable DNSSEC.
  6. Site uses older jQuery version (1.11.2) which may have known vulnerabilities.
  7. No visible security headers detected in HTML content.
  8. Site content is accessible without WAF or challenge.
  9. No social media links or official company emails found.
  10. Site design is functional but basic with limited mobile optimization.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a traditional tech stack with jQuery 1.11.2 and Google Analytics for tracking. Hosting is managed through OVH with DNS services via Cloudflare, but DNSSEC is not enabled. The site loads multiple Google Adsense scripts for advertising. The HTML structure is basic with inline styles and minimal modern framework usage. Mobile optimization is basic, and accessibility features are limited. SEO is supported by meta viewport tags and basic metadata but lacks advanced structured data or Open Graph tags. Performance is moderate, with no explicit performance optimization techniques detected. The site would benefit from modernization of its tech stack and improved front-end practices.
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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