What Is UNICEF?

The acronym UNICEF was originally used for The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, which is now officially known as United Nations Children’s Fund. UNICEF, conceived on the 11th of December 1946 after WWII and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965, is a special program of the United Nations, which is committed to providing humanitarian support and developmental aid to children worldwide. This program, headquartered in New York City, allocates its funds and efforts to the purpose of improving the lives of children globally, focusing on the areas of health, nutrition, general welfare, emergency relief, and education. To date, UNICEF is present in over 190 countries and regions, with a growing workforce of over 13,000 employees on the ground. UNICEF is engaging with partners and governments to bring forth a positive impact for children. Funds for the program rely solely on voluntary contributions from governments and private donors, which as of 2021 stands at a record-breaking $8.1 Billion, according to UNICEF’s annual report.

As of February 2023, the domain unicef.org receives an estimated 710.9 thousand monthly views. The Wayback Machine estimates that unicef.org was created on December 20, 1996. The site’s traffic picked up in 2000 and seems to have a steady traffic since then, with the most trafficked year being 2021.

Is UNICEF Safe?

I analyzed unicef.org for malware and malicious content to check if it was legit or a scam. Here are the results:

I checked the site unicef.org on the online malware scanner Sucuri and it returned with no issues. You can see the same here: Sucuri scan for the site unicef.org.

Unicef.org Sucuri results

See also: How To Stay Safe Online

Sucuri says the site unicef.org doesn’t have malware or any important security issues and is a low security risk.

Some hardening improvements can be made by solving the following missing security header:

Missing Content-Security-Policy directive. We recommend to add the following CSP directives (you can use default-src if all values are the same): script-src, object-src, base-uri, frame-src

However, these hardening improvements don’t impact the Sucuri grade.

To check this further I ran a parasite scan with Unmask Parasites on the site unicef.org and it states that the page seems to be suspicious. You can see the same here: Unmask Parasites scan for the site unicef.org.

One suspicious inline script was found by Unmask Parasites as follows:

<"inlinescr" style="padding-left: 40px;">(window.NREUM||(NREUM={})).init={ajax:{deny_list:["gov-bam.nr-data.net"]}};(window.NREUM||(NREUM={})).loader_config={xpid...

I also checked the domain unicef.org on VirusTotal and no security vendors have deemed the domain as malicious. You can see the same here: VirusTotal scan for the site unicef.org.

Unicef.org Sucuri results

In conclusion, the site unicef.org was graded as a low security risk with no malware found during Sucuri’s scan. Unmask Parasites found 1 suspicious inline script and no vendors associated with Sucuri and VirusTotal have blacklisted the domain or deemed it as malicious. Overall grade: Safe.

Links and Profiles

Website: unicef.org

References

1. SimilarWeb – unicef.org

2. Wayback Machine – unicef.org