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Security report for niva.no

Norsk institutt for vannforskning STI · Other · Norway

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

68/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Norsk institutt for vannforskning (NIVA) is a well-established Norwegian environmental research institute specializing in water and aquatic ecosystems. Founded in 1958, it provides research, monitoring, consulting, and laboratory services primarily focused on environmental, climate, and resource issues. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand with clear communication of its mission and services, targeting environmental professionals, government agencies, and the public. Technically, the site uses modern JavaScript frameworks such as Hotwired Turbo and is hosted on Fastly's CDN network, but suffers from slow load times and lacks a valid SSL certificate, which is a critical security flaw. The security posture is weak with no HTTPS, no security headers, and missing email authentication records. Privacy compliance is minimal with a privacy policy present but no cookie consent mechanism. Contact information is clearly provided, including email, phone, and physical address, along with active social media channels. Overall, the site is credible but requires urgent security improvements to protect users and data.

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

5 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. 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

    • 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

    • High

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

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

Keep watching niva.no

This scan found 20 issues across 5 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
100
Security headers
40
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
25
Average
68

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

NIVA holds a strong market position as Norway's leading water and environmental research institute, serving a diverse audience including governmental bodies, environmental organizations, and industry sectors like aquaculture. Its business model revolves around research projects, environmental monitoring, and advisory services. The organization demonstrates stable growth with over 310 employees and 700+ annual projects. The website supports this with detailed project showcases and thematic content. Partnerships and collaborations are implied but no explicit partner domains were identified. The institute's long history and clear organizational information enhance its credibility and trustworthiness in the sector.

Security posture

The website currently exhibits a low security maturity level due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate, lack of HTTPS enforcement, and missing security headers. This exposes visitors to risks such as data interception and undermines trust. Email security is also weak with no DMARC record. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is provided, indicating limited transparency in security management. The lack of cookie consent mechanisms may also pose GDPR compliance risks. Immediate remediation of SSL/TLS and security headers is critical to improve the security posture and protect user data.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload options.
  3. Add essential security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  4. Configure DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records to secure email delivery and prevent spoofing.
  5. Introduce a cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply with GDPR and inform users about tracking.
  6. Develop and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to enhance transparency.
  7. Optimize website performance to reduce load times and improve user experience.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Norsk institutt for vannforskning STI
Registration number
855869942
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses modern JavaScript modules and the Hotwired Turbo framework to enhance user experience with fast navigation. It is hosted on Fastly CDN, which generally supports good performance and availability, but the current load time is slow (over 11 seconds) possibly due to large page size and many resources (85). The site is mobile optimized and accessible with good SEO practices including meta tags and Open Graph data. However, the lack of HTTPS and security headers represents a significant technical debt and risk. The CMS or backend platform is not explicitly identified, suggesting a custom or proprietary solution. There is opportunity to improve technical infrastructure by enabling TLS, optimizing resource loading, and enhancing security configurations.
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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