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Security report for thecapitolforum.com

The Capitol Forum · Media · United States

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

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Capitol Forum is an independent investigative media organization specializing in detailed reporting and analysis of regulatory developments impacting markets, with a focus on antitrust, mergers, corporate investigations, and sector regulation. Established in 2012, it serves a specialized audience including government regulators, legal professionals, investors, and non-profits. The business operates on a subscription model, offering unique insights, special reports, podcasts, and events to its subscribers. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand image with excellent content quality and user experience. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern web technologies such as Yoast SEO, jQuery, Swiper.js, and AOS for animations. It is hosted likely via GoDaddy.com, LLC, with good mobile optimization and SEO practices. Performance is moderate, with room for improvement in accessibility features. The site employs HTTPS with a strong SSL configuration but lacks some advanced security headers and explicit security policies. From a security perspective, the site demonstrates good practices including HTTPS enforcement and cookie consent mechanisms compliant with GDPR and US privacy laws. However, it lacks publicly available security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. DNSSEC is not enabled, which is a recommended improvement. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. Overall, The Capitol Forum presents a low-risk profile with strong business credibility and privacy compliance. Strategic recommendations include enabling DNSSEC, publishing security and incident response policies, and adding vulnerability disclosure information to enhance trust and security posture further.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
80/ 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

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 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 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 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
    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching thecapitolforum.com

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.

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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Full report

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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
52
Security headers
30
Email security
75
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
80
Average
70

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 Capitol Forum occupies a niche market position as a trusted source of investigative journalism focused on regulatory and competition policy. Its competitive advantage lies in deep, expert-driven content that appeals to a specialized audience of regulators, lawyers, investors, and non-profits. The subscription-based business model generates revenue through access to exclusive news, analysis, and events. The company demonstrates growth through regular content updates, podcasts, and conferences. Its partnership ecosystem includes social media platforms and content distribution channels but no direct partner or subsidiary domains were identified. The company maintains a professional online presence with strong trust signals such as testimonials from industry experts and comprehensive privacy compliance.

Security posture

The Capitol Forum exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and cookie consent mechanisms aligned with GDPR and US privacy regulations. The domain registration status includes protective flags against unauthorized changes, enhancing domain security. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security represents areas for improvement. No public security policy or incident response contact information is available, which could hinder rapid response to security incidents. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were found in the website content. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by adopting additional best practices and transparency measures.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement and publish comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response contact information on the website.
  4. Establish a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Enhance accessibility features to improve compliance and user experience for all visitors.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The Capitol Forum
Description
Independent investigative media organization providing subscribers with breaking news and in-depth analysis on regulatory developments and their impact on markets, focusing on antitrust, merger control, corporate investigations, and sector regulation.
Key services
Investigative journalism, Regulatory news and analysis, Special reports, Podcasts, Events and conferences, Executive briefings
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, jQuery, Swiper.js, AOS (Animate On Scroll), Font Awesome
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner with opt-out preferences
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security status domain statuses (clientDeleteProhibited etc.)

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Google Analytics (gtag.js)
Marketing tools
Complianz GDPR Cookie Consent
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. Strong compliance with privacy and cookie regulations including opt-out mechanisms.
  3. Professional and consistent branding with high-quality content and user experience.
  4. Use of modern web technologies and SEO best practices.
  5. No security policy or incident response information publicly available.
  6. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found.
  7. Domain registration data supports legitimacy and business continuity.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a WordPress CMS platform using a modern tech stack including Yoast SEO for search optimization, jQuery for scripting, Swiper.js for sliders, and AOS for animations. It uses Google Fonts and Font Awesome for typography and icons. The hosting provider is inferred as GoDaddy.com, LLC based on registrar and nameservers. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and SEO practices. The site uses HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate but lacks some advanced security headers. The site includes multiple external resources from trusted CDNs and analytics via Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. There is no evidence of technical debt or deprecated libraries, but accessibility could be improved. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a professional and performant user experience.
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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