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Security report for placehold.co

Placehold · Technology · Iceland

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

62/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Placehold is a small technology service founded in 2015 that provides a free, fast, and simple image placeholder generation tool supporting multiple image formats and customization options. The website targets developers and designers who need placeholder images for projects. The service operates with a minimalistic business model offering free usage with advertising support via Carbon Ads. Technically, the site is well implemented with modern HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, hosted on Cloudflare, and uses HTTPS with a fast loading performance and good mobile optimization. However, it lacks CMS usage and advanced accessibility features. Security posture is moderate with HTTPS enabled and domain transfer protection, but lacks DNSSEC and security headers. Privacy compliance is weak due to absence of privacy and cookie policies and no consent mechanisms. Contact is limited to a support email, with no phone or physical address disclosed. Overall, the site is trustworthy for its niche but could improve compliance and security transparency.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of placehold.co. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 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

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 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

    • 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

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

Keep watching placehold.co

This scan found 24 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
30
Email security
70
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
62

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

Placehold occupies a niche in the web development tools market by offering customizable placeholder images. Its competitive advantage lies in supporting multiple image formats including modern ones like WebP and AVIF, and offering flexible customization of size, color, text, and fonts. The free service is monetized through advertising partnerships, primarily Carbon Ads. The target customers are developers and designers needing quick placeholder images. The company appears to be a small independent entity with no parent or subsidiaries. The domain age and stable registration indicate a mature service. The partnership ecosystem includes advertising networks and Google Analytics for marketing insights. Strategic observations suggest opportunities to enhance trust and compliance by publishing privacy and security policies and improving security headers.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and domain transfer protection status set. However, it lacks DNSSEC, security headers, and published security policies or incident response contacts. No forms or user input fields reduce attack surface, but the presence of third-party scripts like Google Analytics and Carbon Ads introduces tracking and potential privacy concerns. There is no evidence of vulnerability disclosure programs or security.txt files. GDPR compliance is not clearly addressed. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a small utility website but improvements in DNS security, header implementation, and privacy transparency are recommended to reduce risk and enhance user trust.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS integrity and security.
  2. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie policy with GDPR compliance details.
  3. Implement standard security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options.
  4. Add a security policy page and incident response contact information to improve transparency.
  5. Consider adding a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Placehold
Description
Placehold is a simple, fast and free image placeholder service to generate SVG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP and AVIF placeholder images for your project.
Key services
Image placeholder generation, Support for multiple image formats, Customizable image size, color, text, and font
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Google Analytics, Carbon Ads
Performance
fast
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Carbon Ads
Tracking pixels
DoubleClick
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found on the site
  2. Contact available only via support email
  3. No phone numbers or physical addresses disclosed
  4. No security policy or incident response information published
  5. Use of Google Analytics and Carbon Ads indicates moderate tracking
  6. Good technical implementation with modern standards and responsive design
  7. No CMS detected; likely custom or static site
  8. No DNSSEC enabled, which is a security improvement opportunity
  9. No security headers detected in HTML content
  10. No forms present on the site to collect user data
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a clean and modern technology stack with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, including Google Analytics for tracking and Carbon Ads for monetization. It is hosted behind Cloudflare, providing CDN and security benefits. The site is fast and mobile optimized with responsive design. No CMS or frameworks were detected, indicating a likely custom or static site. The absence of DNSSEC and security headers represents technical debt and security risk. The site has good SEO metadata and Open Graph tags for social sharing. No forms or complex user interactions reduce complexity but limit data collection capabilities. Overall, the technical implementation is solid but could benefit from enhanced security configurations and privacy features.
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. 60/100Medium34 findingsView report
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