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Security report for yourls.org

YOURLS Contributors · Technology · N/a

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

Security score

76/100

Risk levelLow

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

YOURLS is an established open-source project providing a self-hosted URL shortening solution. It targets developers and organizations seeking full control over their URL shortening services. The website reflects a mature project with a consistent brand and strong community support, including sponsorship transparency. Technically, the site is built using modern static site generation technology (Docusaurus) and leverages Cloudflare for DNS and analytics, ensuring good performance and mobile optimization. Security posture is generally good with HTTPS enforced and domain transfer protections, but lacks explicit security headers and published privacy or cookie policies, which are areas for improvement. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professional, though it would benefit from enhanced privacy compliance and clearer contact information.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
50/ 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 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

    • 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 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

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This scan found 17 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
75
Security headers
80
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
50
Average
76

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

YOURLS occupies a niche in the technology sector as a leading self-hosted URL shortener. Its open-source business model relies on community contributions and sponsorships, with no direct commercial sales evident. The target audience includes developers and website owners who prefer control over third-party services. The project has longevity, founded in 2009, and maintains a transparent sponsorship model via OpenCollective. The ecosystem includes GitHub for code hosting and Algolia for search functionality. The absence of direct contact details suggests a community-driven support model rather than a traditional corporate structure.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to good security maturity level. HTTPS is enforced, and domain transfer protections are in place. However, the lack of DNSSEC and missing security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security reduce the overall security posture. No vulnerability disclosure or incident response information is published, which could hinder coordinated security incident management. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. The site uses Cloudflare analytics, which may collect minimal user data. Overall, the security posture is adequate for an open-source project but could be enhanced with formal policies and technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to improve GDPR and privacy compliance.
  3. Implement and publish a security policy and vulnerability disclosure program to foster trust and incident readiness.
  4. Add standard security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options) to improve protection against common web attacks.
  5. Provide clear contact information or a dedicated security contact channel to facilitate communication.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
YOURLS Contributors
Description
YOURLS is a free and open-source self-hosted URL shortener software that provides full control over URL shortening on your own domain.
Key services
URL shortening, Developer API, Bookmarklets, Click statistics with historical reports, Referrer tracking, Visitor geo-location, Plugin architecture for extensibility
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, Docusaurus v3.9.2, Algolia DocSearch, Cloudflare DNS
Frameworks
Docusaurus
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced (implied by canonical URLs and Cloudflare usage)
  • Domain status clientTransferProhibited to prevent unauthorized transfers

Analytics and tracking

Services
Cloudflare Pages Analytics
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Cloudflare Pages Analytics
Marketing tools
Algolia DocSearch
Transparency
basic

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. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages found on the main site.
  3. No contact emails, phone numbers, or physical addresses explicitly provided.
  4. Strong open-source community signals and sponsor transparency.
  5. Modern static site generated with Docusaurus and uses Cloudflare DNS.
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure page detected.
  7. No security headers detected in HTML content but HTTPS is implied.
  8. No forms detected on the main page; no data collection forms present.
  9. External links mostly to GitHub, OpenCollective, and Algolia services.
  10. No social media links explicitly found in the HTML content.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using Docusaurus v3.9.2, a modern React-based static site generator optimized for documentation. It integrates Algolia DocSearch for search functionality and uses Cloudflare for DNS and analytics. The site is well-structured with proper meta tags, Open Graph tags, and responsive design, ensuring good SEO and mobile experience. Performance is fast due to static content delivery and CDN usage. No CMS beyond Docusaurus is detected. The technical stack is modern and well-maintained, with no visible technical debt or deprecated technologies. Opportunities exist to improve security headers and privacy compliance documentation.
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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