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Security report for tellingroom.org

The Telling Room · Education · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

64/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Telling Room is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth aged 6 to 18 through creative writing programs, workshops, and publishing opportunities. The organization is well-established in Portland, Maine, with a strong community presence and a variety of educational offerings aimed at building literacy and confidence among young writers. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand image, supported by active social media channels and community engagement events, including notable visits such as from President Barack Obama. Technically, the website is built on the Squarespace platform, leveraging modern web technologies including jQuery and Vimeo for multimedia content. The site is mobile-optimized and performs moderately well, with good SEO practices and accessibility features, although some improvements could be made in accessibility and performance tuning. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS but lacks some advanced security headers such as HSTS and CSP. There is no visible security.txt or incident response contact information, which are recommended for transparency and vulnerability management. Privacy compliance is limited, with no explicit privacy or cookie policies found, representing a compliance gap especially relevant under GDPR and similar regulations. Overall, the website presents a low-risk profile with strong business credibility and trustworthy content. Strategic recommendations include enhancing privacy and cookie policies, implementing security headers, and adding vulnerability disclosure information to improve security posture and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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

5 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 tellingroom.org

This scan found 28 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

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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
62
Security headers
35
Email security
70
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
64

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 Telling Room operates in the education and non-profit sectors, focusing on youth literacy and creative expression. Its business model centers on community programs, workshops, and publishing projects that engage young writers and educators. The organization benefits from a strong local presence and partnerships with corporate and institutional funders. Growth indicators include active event programming and media coverage. The website supports these efforts with clear program descriptions and calls to action for donations and volunteering. The organization maintains a consistent brand and trust signals such as board information and impact reports, positioning it as a reputable entity in its niche.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic to moderate security maturity level. HTTPS is enforced, ensuring encrypted communications. However, the absence of HSTS and CSP headers reduces protection against certain attack vectors like protocol downgrade and cross-site scripting. No security.txt or incident response contacts are provided, limiting transparency for vulnerability reporting. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. The site lacks explicit privacy and cookie policies, which are important for regulatory compliance and user trust. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a non-profit informational site but could be improved with standard best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) to enforce HTTPS and prevent protocol downgrade attacks.
  2. Implement a Content Security Policy (CSP) to mitigate cross-site scripting and related attacks.
  3. Publish a security.txt file with clear vulnerability disclosure and incident response contacts.
  4. Add comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with user consent mechanisms to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and dependencies to avoid vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
225 Commercial Street
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The Telling Room
Description
At The Telling Room, we empower youth through writing and share their voices with the world. Focused on young writers ages 6 to 18, we seek to build confidence, strengthen literacy skills, and provide real audiences for our students. We believe that the power of creative expression can change our communities and prepare our youth for success both now and in the future.
Key services
Youth writing programs, Publishing workshops, Storytelling workshops, Camps, In-school residencies and workshops, Anthology projects, College essay workshops
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Squarespace CMS, jQuery, Vimeo player, Google Fonts, Squarespace proprietary scripts and styles
Platforms
Squarespace
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Marketing tools
Squarespace marketing features
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally designed Squarespace site for a youth writing non-profit organization.
  2. Content is rich with program descriptions, news, events, and community engagement.
  3. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found, which is a compliance gap.
  4. No security.txt or incident response information found.
  5. WHOIS data is unavailable or privacy protected, common for non-profits.
  6. No signs of malicious or adult content.
  7. Social media presence is active and consistent with organization branding.
  8. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Squarespace, a popular CMS platform, which provides a stable and secure hosting environment. The use of jQuery and Vimeo enhances interactivity and multimedia capabilities. The site loads with moderate speed and is mobile responsive, providing a good user experience across devices. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags and structured data. Accessibility is basic but could be improved with additional ARIA attributes and keyboard navigation support. The technical stack is modern but somewhat dependent on third-party services, which should be monitored for security and performance.
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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