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Security report for writefreely.org

WriteFreely · Technology · N/a

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

WriteFreely is an open source, minimalist blogging platform designed for self-hosting and federation via ActivityPub. It targets writers and communities seeking a distraction-free writing environment integrated with the decentralized social web. The platform is mature, powering over half a million blogs, and offers both downloadable binaries and managed hosting services. The website is professionally designed with clear navigation and good mobile optimization, reflecting a technically competent and user-friendly digital presence. The technical infrastructure leverages Go for lightweight performance and uses reputable DNS and registrar services, ensuring stability and reliability. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enabled and domain transfer protections, though improvements are needed in DNSSEC, security headers, and privacy compliance mechanisms. Analytics usage is privacy-conscious, employing Matomo without extensive tracking. Overall, the domain registration and website content are consistent and trustworthy, supporting a high legitimacy score. Strategic recommendations include enhancing privacy and security policies, adding contact and incident response information, and implementing cookie consent to improve compliance and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
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

9 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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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

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

Keep watching writefreely.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
72
Security headers
15
Email security
65
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
61

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

WriteFreely occupies a niche in the open source blogging and federated social media ecosystem, competing by offering a lightweight, easy-to-install platform with strong community and federation features. Its business model combines free software distribution with optional managed hosting, appealing to both individual writers and communities. The company maintains a partnership ecosystem including Write.as and Musing Studio, enhancing its market reach. The platform's longevity and large user base indicate steady growth and market acceptance. The absence of direct contact information on the website suggests a focus on community-driven support rather than traditional customer service. The company’s transparent open source approach and integration with the fediverse provide competitive advantages in privacy-conscious and decentralized social media markets.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to good security maturity level with mandatory HTTPS and domain transfer lock in place. However, the lack of DNSSEC and security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security reduces its defense-in-depth. No explicit security policy, incident response contacts, or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are published, which could hinder rapid response to security incidents. The use of Matomo analytics reflects a privacy-aware approach, but absence of cookie consent and privacy policy details limits GDPR compliance. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a small technology company but requires enhancements to meet higher compliance and security standards.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to protect against DNS spoofing and improve DNS security.
  2. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with GDPR compliance details and consent mechanisms.
  3. Add security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to harden the website against common attacks.
  4. Publish a security policy and incident response contact information (e.g., security@ or abuse@ email) to improve transparency and readiness.
  5. Include terms of service and clear contact information to enhance business credibility and user trust.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
WriteFreely
Description
Minimalist, federated, self-hosted blogging platform.
Key services
Self-hosted blogging platform, Federation via ActivityPub, Managed hosting services
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Go (golang), JavaScript, CSS
Performance
fast
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo (Piwik)
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Piwik/Matomo
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is professionally presented and focused on open source blogging software.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie policy pages found, but support page likely contains privacy info.
  4. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly listed on the homepage or footer.
  5. Use of Matomo analytics indicates privacy-conscious tracking.
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy found.
  7. No visible security headers detected in HTML content; likely needs improvement.
  8. Domain WHOIS data is consistent and trustworthy.
  9. No suspicious or malicious content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern technology stack centered on Go for backend performance and JavaScript/CSS for frontend presentation. The site loads resources from a dedicated CDN (cdn.writeas.net) and uses Matomo analytics for privacy-conscious tracking. The domain is registered with a reputable registrar and uses multiple DNS servers from 1984.is and 1984hosting.com, indicating a robust DNS infrastructure. The site is fast and mobile-optimized with good SEO meta tags and Open Graph integration. However, the absence of security headers and cookie consent mechanisms indicates technical debt in security and privacy compliance. The site architecture is simple and effective, with no CMS detected beyond the custom WriteFreely platform. Overall, the technical implementation supports a stable and performant user experience but could benefit from security and compliance modernization.
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. 61/100 −2Medium32 findingsView report
  2. 63/100Medium26 findingsView report
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