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Security report for routledgeopenresearch.org

F1000 Research Limited · Education · N/a

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

60/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Routledge Open Research is an open access academic publishing platform operated by F1000 Research Limited, targeting researchers and academics for open dissemination of scholarly articles. The platform is affiliated with reputable publishing groups such as Taylor & Francis and F1000, enhancing its market credibility. Technically, the website uses modern frameworks like React and Material-UI, with monitoring via New Relic and Google Tag Manager, hosted likely on AWS infrastructure. The site is moderately optimized for performance and mobile use but lacks comprehensive privacy and cookie policies, which impacts privacy compliance scores. Security posture is generally good with HTTPS enforced and domain status protections, though DNSSEC is not enabled and security headers are not evident. No contact information or incident response details are provided, limiting transparency. Overall, the website is professional and trustworthy but would benefit from improved privacy disclosures and security enhancements.

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

9 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 routledgeopenresearch.org

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.

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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
77
Security headers
15
Email security
70
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
60

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention routledgeopenresearch.org, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
15
Employees
0
Customers
15
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
7%

1 subdomain affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for routledgeopenresearch.org.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The platform operates in the education sector, focusing on open access publishing. Its business model revolves around providing a digital platform for researchers to publish and share their work openly. The affiliation with Taylor & Francis and F1000 positions it well within the academic publishing market, leveraging established brand trust. The company is medium-sized, founded in 2021, and targets academic researchers globally. Revenue likely comes from publication fees or institutional partnerships. The partnership ecosystem includes major academic publishers, enhancing reach and credibility. Growth indicators include modern technology adoption and integration with analytics and marketing tools. Strategic observations suggest a focus on expanding open access offerings and improving user engagement through technical and policy enhancements.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and domain status protections that prevent unauthorized domain transfers or deletions. However, the absence of DNSSEC reduces DNS security, and no explicit security headers are detected in the HTML content. There is no visible vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file, and no contact channels for security incidents are provided. The lack of privacy and cookie policies also indicates compliance gaps with GDPR and related regulations. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. Incident response readiness appears limited due to missing contact information. Overall, the security posture is adequate but requires improvements in DNS security, policy transparency, and incident response mechanisms.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to enhance domain name system security and prevent DNS spoofing.
  2. Publish clear and comprehensive privacy and cookie policies accessible from the homepage.
  3. Implement standard security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  4. Provide explicit contact information for security incidents, including a security@ or abuse@ email address.
  5. Establish and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
F1000 Research Limited
Description
Routledge Open Research is an open access publishing platform operated by F1000 Research Limited, providing open access to scholarly research articles. It targets researchers and academics, offering a platform for publishing and disseminating research openly.
Key services
Open access article publishing, Research dissemination
Content quality
basic
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
React, Material-UI, New Relic monitoring, Google Tag Manager
Frameworks
React
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Domain status includes clientDeleteProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager, New Relic
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
HelloBar
Tracking pixels
New Relic
Marketing tools
HelloBar
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenge.
  2. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found on the homepage or linked pages.
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly provided in the HTML content.
  4. Uses modern JavaScript frameworks and monitoring tools.
  5. Affiliated with reputable academic publishing groups (Taylor & Francis, F1000).
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  7. No visible security headers detected in the HTML content.
  8. Domain registration is recent but consistent with business launch.
  9. No suspicious or malicious content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using React and Material-UI, indicating a modern front-end framework with responsive design capabilities. It employs New Relic for performance monitoring and Google Tag Manager for analytics and marketing integrations. Hosting appears to be on Amazon AWS, inferred from DNS servers. The site loads multiple JavaScript bundles asynchronously, which supports performance optimization. Accessibility features are basic but present, and SEO meta tags including Open Graph tags are implemented. However, the absence of CMS identification suggests a custom or proprietary platform. Performance is moderate with room for improvement in loading speed and SEO optimization. Technical debt is minimal, but the lack of DNSSEC and security headers represents a risk. Modernization opportunities include enhancing privacy compliance and security posture through policy and technical controls.
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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