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Security report for rferl.org

RFE/RL · Media · N/a

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a large, reputable international news organization providing journalism in 27 languages across 23 countries, focusing on regions with restricted press freedom. The website demonstrates a professional and consistent brand presence with high-quality content including news, analysis, videos, podcasts, and photo galleries. The technical infrastructure employs modern analytics and marketing technologies, ensuring good performance and mobile optimization. Security posture is strong with HTTPS and security headers, though explicit security policies and incident response information are not published. Privacy and cookie policies are comprehensive and GDPR compliant. Overall, the website is trustworthy and well-maintained, serving a general audience with safe content.

Scanned

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

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 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 rferl.org

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
95
Security headers
50
Email security
85
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
74

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

RFE/RL operates as an essential media entity with a business model centered on international journalism and news dissemination. It holds a strong market position as a leading source of news in regions where free press is limited. The organization leverages partnerships with related domains such as currenttime.tv and is affiliated with the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Its revenue streams likely include government funding and grants typical for public interest media. The target audience is broad, encompassing global users interested in unbiased news from restricted regions. The company maintains a large workforce of journalists and freelancers, indicating significant operational scale.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, presence of security headers, and no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. However, it lacks publicly available security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms, which are recommended best practices. The use of multiple third-party analytics and marketing scripts necessitates ongoing security audits to mitigate risks. Privacy compliance is addressed through clear privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanisms. Overall, the security maturity is good but can be enhanced by publishing explicit security governance documentation.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to improve transparency and trust.
  2. Implement a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  3. Enhance contact information with dedicated security and abuse email addresses.
  4. Regularly review and update third-party scripts to minimize security risks.
  5. Consider adding HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) header if not already present to strengthen HTTPS enforcement.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
RFE/RL
Description
RFE/RL has more than 700 full-time journalists and 1,300 freelancers reporting the news in 27 languages in 23 countries. We operate where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established and provide what many people cannot get locally.
Key services
news reporting, analysis, videos, podcasts, photo galleries
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity, OneSignal, YouTube iframe API, Tealium, ScorecardResearch, Facebook Pixel, Chartbeat, Crazy Egg
Platforms
web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of analytics with consent mechanisms

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Chartbeat, Crazy Egg
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
ScorecardResearch, Crazy Egg
Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, Microsoft Clarity, Chartbeat
Marketing tools
Tealium, OneSignal
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional news media outlet with extensive content and multimedia.
  2. Strong presence on social media and multiple language services.
  3. Uses modern analytics and marketing tools with consent mechanisms.
  4. No signs of blocking or WAF interference.
  5. WHOIS data unavailable due to malformed request, but no suspicious indicators found.
  6. No explicit security policy or incident response info published.
  7. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found.
  8. Privacy and cookie policies are present and comprehensive.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a custom CMS with versioning indicating active maintenance. It integrates multiple analytics and marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Tealium, and OneSignal for push notifications. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features. Performance is moderate, likely due to the volume of multimedia content and third-party scripts. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data. Hosting provider details are not explicit, but the site uses CDN and external services for content delivery and tracking. Technical risks include dependency on multiple third-party scripts which require continuous security monitoring.
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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