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Security report for niku.no

Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning (NIKU) · Other · Norway

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

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning (NIKU) is a Norwegian research institute specializing in cultural heritage research and consultancy services for both public and private sectors. The website presents a professional and content-rich platform showcasing their projects, news, and services, targeting stakeholders interested in archaeology, conservation, and cultural heritage. The organization maintains a consistent brand presence with active social media channels and a newsletter subscription option. Technically, the site is built on WordPress hosted on WP Engine with integrations such as Algolia Search, Google Tag Manager, and Hotjar, indicating a moderate level of digital maturity. However, the website suffers from a critical security issue with an invalid SSL certificate and lacks modern TLS protocol support, which undermines user trust and security. Privacy compliance is partial, with a clear privacy policy but no cookie consent mechanism detected. Overall, the site is credible and professional but requires urgent security improvements.

Scanned

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 niku.no

This scan found 19 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
85
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
25
Average
61

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

NIKU operates in the niche sector of cultural heritage research and consultancy, serving both governmental and private clients. Their market position is that of a specialized research institute with expertise in archaeology, conservation, and digital archaeology. The business model revolves around research projects, consultancy, and knowledge dissemination through publications and news. The presence of multiple local offices and network partners indicates a well-established operational footprint in Norway. Their digital presence supports their business goals with SEO optimization and content marketing. The lack of explicit security policies or incident response information suggests an area for organizational improvement. Partnerships with entities like Miljøalliansen and Framsenteret enhance their collaborative ecosystem.

Security posture

The website's security posture is currently weak due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and lack of support for modern TLS protocols. No HSTS policy is implemented, and critical security headers are missing. While no active vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed or POODLE are detected, the invalid SSL undermines secure communications. The site does not provide visible incident response or security policy documentation, which could impact trust and compliance. The DNS configuration shows no DNSSEC and malformed CAA records, which are additional security concerns. Overall, the security maturity is low and requires immediate remediation to protect user data and maintain compliance.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and install a valid SSL/TLS certificate from a trusted CA to enable HTTPS properly.
  2. Enable TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 protocols and disable deprecated protocols to improve encryption standards.
  3. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload directives.
  4. Correct the DNS CAA records to valid entries to restrict certificate issuance.
  5. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  6. Introduce a cookie consent mechanism to comply with GDPR and enhance privacy transparency.
  7. Publish a security policy and incident response contact information to improve trust and preparedness.
  8. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and plugins to avoid vulnerabilities.
  9. Improve accessibility features to enhance user experience for all visitors.
  10. Monitor and document data retention policies related to analytics and user data.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by WordPress CMS hosted on WP Engine, served via nginx on a Google Cloud IP. It uses modern JavaScript libraries including jQuery, Algolia Search for site search, Hotjar for user behavior analytics, and Google Tag Manager for tag management. SEO is enhanced with Yoast SEO Premium and structured data in JSON-LD format is implemented for rich search results. The site is mobile responsive and uses multiple favicons for device compatibility. However, performance metrics are unavailable, and SSL/TLS configuration is critically flawed with no valid certificate and no TLS protocols enabled. DNSSEC is not enabled, and CAA records are malformed, indicating technical debt in security DNS configurations. The site uses multiple external resources from trusted CDNs. Overall, the technical infrastructure is solid but requires urgent security and performance optimizations.
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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