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Security report for wikimediafoundation.org

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. · Non-profit · United States

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. operates as a leading non-profit organization providing essential infrastructure for free knowledge projects including Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. The organization is well-established with a domain age since 2003 and a strong global presence. Their business model is donation-driven, targeting a broad audience of volunteers, donors, researchers, and the general public. The website reflects a high level of professionalism, excellent content quality, and consistent branding aligned with their mission to provide free and open knowledge worldwide. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern SEO and analytics tools, optimized for performance and mobile use. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and secure donation forms, though improvements can be made in DNS security and explicit security policies. Privacy compliance is good with comprehensive privacy policies linked, but lacks a cookie consent mechanism. Overall, the site is trustworthy and credible, with no signs of malicious activity or suspicious registrations.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of wikimediafoundation.org. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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

4 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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

  2. 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

      SSL Certificate Expires Soon

      SSL certificate expires in 28 days

      What to do: Renew SSL certificate before expiration

      • NIS2 21(2)(h)
      • IR 2024/2690 9.2(c): Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 9.2(c): Cryptography
      • NIST SC-17: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-17: Public Key Infrastructure Certificates
    • 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 wikimediafoundation.org

This scan found 18 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
32
Security headers
95
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
74

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

Wikimedia Foundation holds a dominant position in the free knowledge and open content sector, leveraging a global volunteer community and extensive digital infrastructure. Their revenue streams are primarily donations, supported by secure online payment processing through partner domains. The organization maintains a broad partnership ecosystem and a transparent operational model. The website supports multiple languages and provides extensive resources for participation, research, advocacy, and technology development. Growth indicators include a large monthly active editor base and billions of unique device accesses. Strategic observations highlight the importance of maintaining trust through transparent privacy and security practices and expanding outreach to underrepresented communities.

Security posture

The Wikimedia Foundation website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and secure donation mechanisms. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. However, the absence of DNSSEC and lack of published security policies or incident response contacts represent areas for improvement. The use of Matomo analytics indicates a preference for privacy-respecting tracking. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files were found, which could enhance transparency and security readiness. Overall, the site is secure but could benefit from formalizing and publishing additional security governance documents.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement a cookie consent banner to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  3. Publish explicit security policies and incident response procedures on the website.
  4. Create and maintain a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  5. Add security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP) and HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) to strengthen security posture.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Description
The nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation provides the essential infrastructure for free knowledge. We host Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, created, edited, and verified by volunteers around the world, as well as many other vital community projects.
Key services
Wikipedia hosting, Wikimedia Commons, Research, Advocacy, Technology development
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Yoast SEO, Matomo Analytics, Piwik, JavaScript, CSS
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure donation forms
  • No exposed sensitive data

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Transparency
excellent

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is professionally designed and well maintained.
  2. Content is comprehensive and aligned with Wikimedia Foundation's mission.
  3. Secure donation mechanisms are in place.
  4. Strong social media presence and community engagement.
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity.
  6. No explicit privacy or security policy pages found on main domain but linked to foundation.wikimedia.org.
  7. No cookie consent banner detected despite use of tracking analytics.
  8. No explicit security.txt or vulnerability disclosure found.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by WordPress CMS with Yoast SEO plugin, ensuring strong SEO optimization and structured data usage. It uses Matomo analytics for user tracking, favoring privacy. The site is well-optimized for mobile devices and loads quickly. The technology stack is modern and maintained, with no deprecated or vulnerable libraries detected. Hosting details are not explicit but the domain registrar is MarkMonitor Inc., a reputable provider. The site uses canonical URLs, Open Graph tags, and JSON-LD structured data for enhanced search engine and social media integration. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a robust, scalable, and user-friendly platform.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 75/100 −4Medium27 findingsView report
  2. 79/100Low20 findingsView report
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