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Security report for tolonews.com

TOLOnews · Media · Afghanistan

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

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

TOLOnews is a well-established Afghan news media organization founded in 2010, providing comprehensive coverage of local and international news, politics, sports, culture, and more. The website targets a general audience interested in Afghanistan and global affairs, offering multilingual content in English, Pashto, and Dari. It operates a professional digital platform built on Drupal 8 CMS, integrating modern analytics and social media tools to enhance user engagement and content delivery. The site is hosted with reputable providers and uses HTTPS with domain locking to ensure security and trustworthiness. Technically, the website demonstrates a mature infrastructure with good performance, mobile optimization, and SEO practices. However, it lacks explicit privacy and cookie policies, which are critical for GDPR compliance and user trust. Security posture is generally good, with HTTPS enforced and domain status protections in place, but DNSSEC is not enabled, representing a minor security gap. No vulnerability disclosure or incident response information is publicly available, which could be improved. Overall, TOLOnews presents a credible and professional news platform with strong business credibility and technical implementation. The main risks relate to privacy compliance and minor DNS security enhancements. Strategic recommendations include publishing comprehensive privacy and cookie policies, enabling DNSSEC, and establishing a vulnerability disclosure mechanism to enhance security transparency and user trust.

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 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 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 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 tolonews.com

This scan found 21 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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Recommended

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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
65
Security headers
35
Email security
85
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
69

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

TOLOnews holds a leading position in Afghan media, leveraging its long domain history and multilingual content to serve a broad audience. Its business model centers on news dissemination through articles, videos, and live coverage, supported by advertising and partnerships. The company benefits from a strong social media presence and integration with global analytics and marketing tools. Growth indicators include consistent content updates and diversified news categories. However, the absence of explicit privacy and security policies may impact compliance and user confidence. Strengthening these areas could improve market positioning and regulatory adherence.

Security posture

The website maintains a solid security foundation with HTTPS encryption, domain locking statuses to prevent unauthorized changes, and DNS managed via Cloudflare. The lack of DNSSEC is a notable omission that could expose the domain to DNS spoofing risks. No direct security policies or incident response contacts are published, limiting transparency. The use of third-party analytics and social media scripts introduces moderate tracking but no evident vulnerabilities. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be enhanced by adopting DNSSEC, publishing security policies, and providing clear incident response channels.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie policy with GDPR compliance details.
  2. Implement a cookie consent mechanism to inform and obtain user consent for tracking.
  3. Enable DNSSEC to secure DNS resolution and prevent spoofing attacks.
  4. Create and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file.
  5. Provide explicit security and incident response contact information on the website.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
TOLOnews
Description
Get up-to-date information on what’s happening in Covid19, business, sports, government, arts, and culture, in the world and Afghanistan
Key services
News articles, Video content, Live news coverage, Weather updates, Newsletter subscription
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 8 CMS, Google Analytics, Facebook SDK, Twitter Widgets, Cloudflare DNS, AccuWeather widget, New Relic monitoring
Frameworks
Drupal
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Domain locked with multiple client status prohibitions
  • Use of Cloudflare DNS for DNS management

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, New Relic
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Taboola (commented out)
Tracking pixels
Facebook SDK, Twitter Widgets, New Relic
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional news media platform focused on Afghanistan and world news.
  2. Content is multilingual with English, Pashto, and Dari languages supported.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie policies found, indicating compliance gaps.
  4. Use of modern web technologies and third-party analytics and social media integrations.
  5. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy detected.
  6. No direct company contact emails or phone numbers found; contact form available.
  7. Domain is well-established and secured with HTTPS and domain locking.
  8. DNSSEC is not enabled, which is a minor security gap.
  9. Advertising scripts and tracking present but no aggressive or suspicious ad networks detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 8 CMS, a robust and widely used content management system suitable for news media. It integrates Google Analytics, Facebook SDK, Twitter widgets, and New Relic for monitoring and analytics. Hosting and DNS are managed by GoDaddy and Cloudflare respectively, ensuring reliable infrastructure. The site uses modern HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript with responsive design for mobile optimization. Performance is moderate with room for improvement in loading speed. SEO is supported by structured data (JSON-LD) and Open Graph tags. Accessibility features are basic but present. Technical risks include lack of DNSSEC and absence of explicit privacy and security policies.
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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