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Security report for revealnews.org

The Center for Investigative Reporting · Media · United States

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

Security score

67/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting is a well-established nonprofit investigative journalism organization founded in 2014. It provides high-quality investigative news content, podcasts, and multimedia storytelling aimed at engaging and empowering the public on critical social issues. The organization maintains a strong market position within nonprofit media, supported by a professional website and active social media presence. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern plugins and integrations such as Yoast SEO, Google Analytics, and reCAPTCHA, hosted on WordPress.com infrastructure. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, though performance is moderate. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and secure forms, but could be enhanced by enabling DNSSEC and adding security headers. Privacy compliance is limited as no explicit privacy or cookie policies were found in the provided content. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and credible, with room for improvement in privacy and security transparency.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 100 · Medium
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. 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 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

  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 revealnews.org

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  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
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  • 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
42
Security headers
30
Email security
90
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
67

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

Reveal operates as a nonprofit media entity focusing on investigative journalism that addresses social justice, accountability, and public interest topics. Its business model relies on donations and grants, facilitated through partner fundraising domains. The target audience includes socially conscious individuals and organizations interested in in-depth reporting. The organization leverages partnerships and a multi-channel content distribution strategy including podcasts and video. The website's content quality and branding consistency support its reputation and trustworthiness. The domain age and privacy-protected WHOIS registration align with nonprofit best practices, enhancing legitimacy. The presence of donation links and social media integration indicates active audience engagement and fundraising efforts.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate, uses Google reCAPTCHA to protect forms, and avoids exposing sensitive data in the HTML content. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, and no explicit security headers were detected in the provided data, which are recommended best practices to mitigate common web attacks. There is no visible security policy or incident response information published on the site, nor a vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file. These gaps suggest moderate security maturity. The site should consider publishing security policies and improving DNS and header configurations to enhance trust and resilience against attacks.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement standard security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  3. Publish a clear privacy policy and cookie policy pages with consent mechanisms to improve privacy compliance.
  4. Add a security policy and incident response contact information to demonstrate security readiness.
  5. Consider publishing a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting of security issues.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The Center for Investigative Reporting
Description
We engage and empower the public through investigative journalism and groundbreaking storytelling that sparks action, improves lives and protects our democracy.
Key services
Investigative journalism articles, Podcasts, Video content, Newsletters
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, Google Analytics, Google reCAPTCHA, Jetpack plugin, Newspack blocks, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
Frameworks
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA on forms
  • No exposed sensitive data detected

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Parsely
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Parsely
Marketing tools
Yoast SEO
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally designed nonprofit investigative journalism platform.
  2. Content is rich, including articles, podcasts, and multimedia.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie policy pages found in the provided content.
  4. No visible contact emails or phone numbers in the main HTML content.
  5. Social media presence is strong with official accounts linked.
  6. Uses modern web technologies and WordPress ecosystem plugins.
  7. Security practices are good but could be improved with DNSSEC and security headers.
  8. No signs of WAF or content blocking detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern WordPress platform with a well-maintained theme and plugins including Yoast SEO and Jetpack. It uses Google Analytics and Parsely for analytics and tracking, and Google reCAPTCHA for form security. The site is hosted on WordPress.com infrastructure, indicated by the nameservers. Performance is moderate with some optimizations such as image preloading and responsive design. Accessibility features are present, and SEO is well implemented with structured data and meta tags. The technical stack is mature and appropriate for a nonprofit media organization, though there is opportunity to enhance security configurations and privacy transparency.
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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