Are you being sarcastic? I need to know because if not, I need to switch to different device.
Yes, I am being sarcastic.
Sorry - I'm very busy with work, so I'll be brief - please don't take it as I'm being rude...
NSC is no less secure than it has ever been. The padlock / insecure thing merely states that the site is not running in HTTPS mode, which secures the data from your browser to the server in both directions. NSC has never run in this mode.
Google, in their self-appointed role as policeman of the internet, decided all sites should run in this mode and they now alert users if sites do not. Some other browsers have done likewise.
This means many sites that really do not need this level of protection, as you exchange no data with them at all, run under HTTPS.
However, in order to follow considered best practice, I fully intend to implement HTTPS on NSC, it's just.a matter of finding the time to do so, along with a whole heap of other things I need to do, as per the current sticky, which I'm leaving in place to shame me into action at some point.
NSC does run on vBulletin 4 which is old technology, but so do thousands and thousands of forums worldwide. I've always kept the site patched up with latest security releases for the software that sits behind it. I wouldn't trust vBulletin with my banking transactions, but for posting bollocks about football, it does just fine.
It is a medium-term aim to look at other alternatives - Xenforo would be the most likely destination - but that's a serious piece of work given the huge amounts of data that exist on here now.