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Security report for ndi.org

National Democratic Institute · Government · United States

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in Security headers and SSL/TLS.

Security score

79/100

Risk levelLow

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

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a well-established non-profit organization founded in 1994, dedicated to supporting democratic institutions worldwide. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand presence, targeting governments, civil society, and democracy advocates globally. The organization offers key services including election observation, governance support, and civil society strengthening. The website is built on Drupal 10 and uses Cloudflare DNS services, indicating a modern and secure technical infrastructure. Google Tag Manager is employed for analytics and tracking, though explicit privacy and cookie policies are not found in the provided content. Security posture is generally good with HTTPS enabled and domain registration consistent with the organization's profile, but DNSSEC is not enabled and security headers are not detected, representing areas for improvement. Overall, the website is professional and trustworthy but would benefit from enhanced privacy compliance and explicit security policies.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
95/ 100 · Low
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

2 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 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. 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.

    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching ndi.org

This scan found 18 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

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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
65
Security headers
55
Email security
80
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
95
Average
79

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

NDI operates in the government and non-profit sectors with a focus on democracy promotion. Its market position is strong due to its long history and global reach. The business model is non-profit, relying on programmatic support and partnerships with governments and civil society. The website's technical maturity is moderate, with modern CMS and analytics tools but lacking some privacy and security best practices. The absence of explicit contact information and policies on the homepage suggests potential areas for transparency improvement. The organization does not appear to have subsidiaries or related domains publicly linked. The use of Cloudflare and Google Tag Manager indicates integration with common web infrastructure and marketing tools.

Security posture

The website uses HTTPS and Cloudflare DNS, which are positive security indicators. The domain status clientTransferProhibited protects against unauthorized transfers. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, which could expose the domain to DNS spoofing risks. No security headers were detected in the provided content, which could improve protection against common web attacks. There is no visible security or incident response policy or contact information, which limits transparency and readiness perception. No vulnerable libraries or exposed sensitive data were identified. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by enabling DNSSEC, adding security headers, and publishing incident response information.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security.
  2. Implement and verify HTTP security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  3. Publish clear privacy and cookie policies with GDPR compliance statements.
  4. Add explicit security and incident response policies and contact channels on the website.
  5. Provide clear contact information including emails and phone numbers for transparency and user trust.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
National Democratic Institute
Description
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a non-profit organization focused on supporting and strengthening democratic institutions worldwide. It provides assistance in areas such as elections, governance, political participation, and civil society development.
Key services
Election observation and support, Governance and political party development, Civil society strengthening, Democratic institution building
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Cloudflare DNS
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited
  • Use of Cloudflare DNS servers

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website uses Drupal 10 CMS with modern web design
  2. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found on homepage HTML
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet
  4. Google Tag Manager is used for analytics and tracking
  5. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found
  6. No explicit security or incident response contact information found
  7. Domain WHOIS data is consistent and indicates a legitimate organization
  8. DNSSEC is not enabled, which is a recommended security improvement
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and secure CMS platform, and uses Cloudflare for DNS services, which provides performance and security benefits. Google Tag Manager is used for analytics and marketing tracking. The site appears mobile optimized and accessible with good design and navigation clarity. Performance is moderate, with no explicit indicators of slow loading or errors. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers indicates some technical debt in security hardening. The website lacks visible structured data such as JSON-LD or Open Graph beyond basic canonical and shortlink tags. Overall, the technical infrastructure is solid but could benefit from enhanced security configurations and richer metadata for SEO.
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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