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Security report for nifes.no

Havforskningsinstituttet · Government · Norway

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

Security score

54/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Havforskningsinstituttet is a leading marine research institute in Europe, based in Norway, with a large staff and a focus on marine ecosystem research, advisory, and monitoring services. The website reflects a mature and professional organization with comprehensive content, clear navigation, and strong branding. Technically, the site uses modern web technologies and frameworks, but suffers from a critical lack of a valid SSL certificate, impacting security posture significantly. Privacy compliance is well addressed with detailed cookie consent and privacy policies. Contact information and trust indicators are clearly presented, supporting business credibility. Overall, the site is a valuable resource for marine science stakeholders but urgently needs to address HTTPS and security header deficiencies to improve security and user trust.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of nifes.no. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
25/ 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. 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 nifes.no

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.

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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
50
Security headers
15
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
25
Average
54

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 operates as a government-funded entity focused on marine research and advisory services, targeting researchers, policymakers, and the public. It maintains partnerships with related marine data centers and environmental initiatives. The business model is non-commercial, emphasizing knowledge provision and sustainability. The website content and structure support a high level of professionalism and engagement with its audience. Growth indicators include active publication of reports and news, social media presence, and event hosting.

Security posture

The current security posture is weak due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate, lack of security headers, and missing DNS security features such as DNSSEC and CAA. While no critical vulnerabilities like malware or WAF blocks are detected, the lack of HTTPS is a critical risk that undermines user data confidentiality and trust. The site uses cookie consent tools and avoids vulnerable SSL protocols, which are positive aspects. Incident response and security policy information are not publicly available, indicating room for improvement in transparency and readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate immediately to enable HTTPS and protect user data.
  2. Implement security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options to mitigate common web attacks.
  3. Enable DNSSEC and CAA records to enhance DNS security and certificate issuance control.
  4. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and trust.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and tracking tools to minimize vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Havforskningsinstituttet
Registration number
971 349 077
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern tech stack including jQuery, Foundation CSS framework, Select2, and Font Awesome. It uses CookieYes for consent management and Monsido for analytics and heatmaps. The CMS appears to be Lime CMS. Performance is moderate with a page load time of approximately 5.3 seconds and a page size of ~269 KB. The site is mobile optimized and accessible with ARIA labels and keyboard navigation support. SEO is supported by meta tags and Open Graph data. However, the lack of HTTPS and security headers represents a significant technical risk. Hosting appears to be on a Norwegian academic/government IP range, consistent with the organization's profile.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 70/100Medium31 findingsView report
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