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Security report for sfpublicpress.org

San Francisco Public Press · Media · United States

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

66/100

Risk levelMedium

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

San Francisco Public Press is an independent nonprofit media organization focused on providing in-depth local news coverage for the San Francisco Bay Area. Their offerings include investigative journalism, special reports, podcasts, and radio broadcasts. The organization targets local residents interested in civic and community issues and operates primarily through donations and grants. The website is built on WordPress with a modern tech stack including Yoast SEO and Google Analytics, reflecting a moderate to good level of digital maturity. The site is mobile-optimized and provides a professional user experience with clear navigation and relevant content. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities, though some security headers and explicit policies are missing. Privacy compliance is basic, lacking a cookie consent mechanism and detailed GDPR indicators. WHOIS data is incomplete, which slightly reduces domain trustworthiness, but the website content and branding are consistent and professional. Overall, the site presents a trustworthy and credible nonprofit media presence 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

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 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 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 sfpublicpress.org

This scan found 23 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
75
Security headers
30
Email security
55
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
66

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

The organization occupies a niche in nonprofit local journalism, focusing on underserved community topics such as environment, homelessness, and civic engagement. Their business model relies on donations facilitated through Kindful, and they maintain active social media channels to engage their audience. The website's content quality and branding consistency support their market position as a credible local news source. Partnerships with donation platforms and use of analytics tools indicate a strategic approach to audience engagement and fundraising. The absence of explicit business registration or VAT information is typical for nonprofits but limits formal business intelligence. Growth opportunities include expanding digital offerings and enhancing privacy and security compliance to build further trust.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and uses common security best practices such as opening external links in new windows with noopener to prevent tabnabbing. However, it lacks several recommended security headers like Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options, which could improve protection against common web attacks. No security or incident response policies are published, and no vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files are present, indicating limited transparency in security management. The absence of a cookie consent mechanism also suggests incomplete privacy compliance. Overall, the security posture is moderate with no critical vulnerabilities detected but room for improvement in policy transparency and header implementation.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to enhance protection.
  2. Add a cookie consent banner and detailed cookie policy to improve GDPR and privacy compliance.
  3. Publish explicit security and incident response policies to increase transparency and trust.
  4. Create a vulnerability disclosure page or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Regularly audit WHOIS data and consider privacy protection options that balance transparency and security.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
San Francisco Public Press
Description
Independent, Nonprofit, In-Depth Local News
Key services
Local news reporting, Special reports, Podcasts, Radio broadcasts
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, FooGallery, FooBox, jQuery
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • External links open in new windows with noopener

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Google DoubleClick
Tracking pixels
Bloomerang
Marketing tools
Mailchimp, Kindful
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a nonprofit local news organization focused on San Francisco and Bay Area
  2. Content is rich with news articles, special reports, and podcasts
  3. Uses WordPress CMS with common plugins for SEO and media galleries
  4. No explicit cookie consent mechanism found
  5. No visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure page
  6. WHOIS data is unavailable or malformed, limiting domain trust verification
  7. HTTPS is enforced with no visible security warnings
  8. Social media presence is strong with official accounts linked
  9. Donation functionality integrated via Kindful
  10. No exposed emails or phone numbers found in HTML content
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with plugins such as Yoast SEO for search optimization and FooGallery/FooBox for media presentation. It uses jQuery and integrates Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager for tracking. Donation processing is handled via Kindful, indicating integration with third-party fundraising platforms. The site is mobile responsive with good SEO metadata including Open Graph and JSON-LD structured data. Performance is moderate, with some custom scripts for gallery behavior and external resource loading. Accessibility features are basic but present. There is no evidence of outdated or vulnerable libraries. Hosting provider details are not explicitly found. Overall, the technical infrastructure is modern and suitable for a nonprofit media organization, with opportunities to enhance security 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

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