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Security report for nfdi4earth.de

NFDI4Earth · Other · Germany

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

64/100

Risk levelMedium

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

NFDI4Earth is a German research consortium focused on addressing digital needs in research data management for Earth System Sciences. It operates as a community-driven initiative with 67 partner institutions including universities and governmental bodies. The website provides access to digital resources, semantic data services, helpdesk support, and educational portals aimed at researchers in this domain. Technically, the site is built on Joomla CMS with Bootstrap and jQuery, hosted likely on academic infrastructure associated with TU Dresden. It employs Matomo analytics configured to respect user privacy by disabling cookies. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and cookie blocking scripts in place, though the site lacks published privacy policies, terms of service, and incident response information, which are important for compliance and trust. Overall, the website is professional, well-branded, and trustworthy, serving a specialized academic audience.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
28/ 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

6 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 Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

    • High

      No Cookie Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

  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 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';…

  3. 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 Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

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

Keep watching nfdi4earth.de

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
57
Security headers
65
Email security
70
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
28
Average
64

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 consortium's market position is that of a national open initiative in Germany, providing essential infrastructure and services for Earth System Sciences research data management. Its business model is collaborative and community-driven, relying on partnerships across academia and government. Key services include a unified portal for digital resources, semantic linked data access, helpdesk support, training, and funding for pilot projects. The target audience is primarily researchers and scientific institutions. The website content and structure reflect a medium-sized organization with consistent branding and good content quality. The partnership ecosystem and use of FAIR principles indicate a strong alignment with modern research data standards.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enabled and privacy-conscious analytics via Matomo with cookies disabled. The presence of scripts to block cookies and local/session storage indicates a proactive approach to user privacy. However, the absence of published privacy policies, terms of service, security policies, and incident response contacts represents compliance gaps and potential risk areas. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the content. Security headers were not explicitly identified in the provided data, suggesting room for improvement. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by formalizing policies and improving transparency.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy page detailing data collection, usage, and user rights.
  2. Add terms of service and security policy documents accessible from the website footer or main menu.
  3. Provide clear contact information including emails and phone numbers for general and security inquiries.
  4. Implement and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy and security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  5. Enhance HTTP security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
NFDI4Earth
Description
NFDI4Earth addresses the digital needs in research data management for the Earth System Sciences. It is a community-driven consortium comprising 67 partnering institutions including universities, research organizations, infrastructure providers, governmental institutions, and scientific associations. The initiative provides researchers with FAIR, coherent, and open access to Earth System data and innovative research data management and data science methods.
Key services
Digital resources portal (OneStop4All), Semantic resources via Knowledge Hub using SPARQL, Helpdesk support for research data management, Interactive learning portal for spatial data analysis, Community engagement and interest groups, Incubator and pilot project funding
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Joomla CMS, Bootstrap 5.3.8, jQuery 3.7.1, Matomo Analytics
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie blocking script to disable cookies, localStorage, sessionStorage
  • Matomo analytics configured to disable cookies

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a research consortium portal focused on Earth System Sciences data management.
  2. Content is comprehensive and targeted at scientific community.
  3. No explicit privacy or terms of service pages found, which is a compliance gap.
  4. Good use of modern web technologies and analytics with privacy considerations.
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided content.
  6. No security policy or incident response information published.
  7. No signs of suspicious or malicious content.
  8. Cookie consent mechanism is implemented and active.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses Joomla CMS with Bootstrap 5.3.8 and jQuery 3.7.1, indicating a modern and maintainable tech stack. Hosting appears to be on academic infrastructure linked to TU Dresden, which suggests reliability. The site is mobile responsive with good SEO meta tags and structured data in JSON-LD format for organization and articles. Performance is moderate with no major issues detected. Accessibility features are basic but present. The use of Matomo analytics configured to disable cookies reflects a privacy-aware approach. Technical debt appears low, but adding security headers and formalizing privacy and security documentation would improve the technical maturity.
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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