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Security report for serif.com

Serif Ltd · Technology · United States

Low risk. No critical or high findings.

Security score

89/100

Risk levelLow

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

Affinity, operated by Serif Ltd, is a well-established provider of creative software tools including Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher. The company targets creative professionals and enthusiasts with a focus on digital design and creative freedom. Their market position is strong with a recognized brand and positive customer reviews. The website demonstrates a mature digital presence with modern technologies such as Vue.js and JSON-LD structured data, ensuring good performance, mobile optimization, and SEO. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and cookie consent mechanisms in place, although some security headers could be improved. Privacy compliance is robust with clear policies and GDPR adherence. Overall, the site reflects a professional and trustworthy business with a medium-sized operation in the technology sector.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
83/ 100 · Low
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

No critical or high findings. These medium findings are worth fixing next.

  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.

    • Medium

      Missing X-XSS-Protection header

      Legacy XSS protection (deprecated but still recommended)

      What to do: Add "X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block"

  2. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • Medium

      Privacy policy may not be GDPR compliant

      Privacy policy lacks explicit GDPR compliance elements

      What to do: Update privacy policy to explicitly address GDPR requirements and user rights

  3. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Medium

      No MTA-STS Policy

      MTA-STS enforces TLS for email delivery

      What to do: Implement MTA-STS to prevent downgrade attacks

  4. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • Medium

      DNSSEC Not Enabled

      DNSSEC is not configured for this domain

      What to do: Enable DNSSEC to prevent DNS spoofing attacks

      • CAPEC-142
      • RFC 4033
      • RFC 4035

Keep watching serif.com

This scan found 11 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

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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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
85
Email security
82
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
83
Average
89

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 serif.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
60,905
Employees
1
Customers
60,862
Third parties
42
Weak passwords
12%

Latest record dated 2025-04-14 · 67 subdomains 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 serif.com.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –store.serif.com2025-04-14

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

Open in Breach(opens in a new tab)Monitor on Breach(opens in a new tab)

Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

Affinity operates primarily in the technology sector, focusing on creative software sales and licensing. Their business model revolves around direct software sales, volume licensing, and education sector offerings. The company maintains partnerships, notably with Canva, enhancing their ecosystem. Customer trust is supported by awards and positive aggregated reviews. The absence of direct contact information on the main site suggests centralized customer service via their store subdomain. The company’s digital strategy includes strong branding, multilingual support, and comprehensive user engagement through social media and community forums.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and employs cookie consent banners, indicating awareness of privacy and security best practices. However, the absence of visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents an area for improvement. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The lack of a published security policy or incident response contact limits transparency for security researchers. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by adopting additional headers and publishing vulnerability disclosure information.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy page and provide clear incident response contact information.
  3. Add a security.txt file or vulnerability disclosure program to facilitate responsible reporting.
  4. Enhance transparency by including direct company contact information for support and security inquiries.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking pixels to ensure compliance and minimize privacy risks.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Serif Ltd
Description
Affinity offers creative software products and services, focusing on digital design and creative freedom.
Key services
Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, Affinity Publisher, Volume Licensing, Education Licensing
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, Vue.js, JSON-LD, Web Fonts (WOFF2), HTTPS
Frameworks
Vue.js
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent mechanism
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, HubSpot
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
_ga, _gid, _fbp, hubspotutk, __hstc, __hssrc, __hssc
Marketing tools
HubSpot
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is professionally presented with clear branding and navigation.
  3. Strong privacy and cookie policies with explicit consent mechanisms.
  4. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on main page; likely handled via store.serif.com subdomain.
  5. Use of modern web technologies and good SEO practices.
  6. No visible security headers in HTML but HTTPS is enforced.
  7. WHOIS data for subdomain not available, which is expected behavior.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern tech stack with Vue.js for frontend interactivity and JSON-LD for structured data, enhancing SEO and accessibility. Web fonts are optimized with WOFF2 format, and images use responsive srcset attributes for performance. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with clear navigation and consistent branding. No CMS was detected, suggesting a custom or static site architecture. Hosting provider details are not explicit. Performance is fast with preloading of critical scripts. Technical risks are minimal, but the absence of some security headers and explicit hosting info could be addressed to improve resilience.
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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