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Security report for 50statestoday.com

Newsmatics Inc. dba Affinity Group Publishing & 50 States Today · Media · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

68/100

Risk levelMedium

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

50 States Today is an online news publication operated by Newsmatics Inc., focusing on delivering top news stories and press releases related to the United States. The website serves a general audience interested in US news and provides services such as news aggregation, press release publishing, and email news alerts. The business model centers on media content distribution with a niche focus on US-centric topics. The site is moderately sized and founded in 2021, positioning itself as a credible source within its market segment. Technically, the website employs modern web technologies including HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and Google Tag Manager for analytics. It uses a custom or proprietary CMS and shows good mobile optimization and SEO practices. However, some technical improvements are recommended such as enabling DNSSEC and adding security headers to enhance security posture. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS and implements cookie consent mechanisms, indicating basic privacy compliance. However, it lacks explicit security policies, incident response information, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. The domain registration is consistent with the business claims, registered with a reputable registrar and not privacy protected. Overall, the website presents a good balance of content quality, technical implementation, and business credibility with room for improvement in security and privacy compliance. The risk level is moderate with no immediate critical issues detected.

Scanned

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

6 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  2. 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"

  3. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • 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

  4. 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

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

Keep watching 50statestoday.com

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.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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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
52
Security headers
50
Email security
60
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
68

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

The company operates in the media sector, focusing on US news and press releases. It leverages partnerships with Affinity Group Publishing and uses a content aggregation model. Revenue streams likely include advertising, sponsored press releases, and possibly subscription-based email alerts. The target audience is broad, encompassing general US news consumers. The company shows consistent branding and maintains a professional online presence. Growth indicators include recent content updates and active news coverage. The partnership ecosystem includes affinitygrouppublishing.com, which appears as a parent or partner brand. Strategically, the company could enhance its market position by expanding content offerings, improving security and privacy transparency, and increasing user engagement through social media and interactive features.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic security posture with HTTPS enabled and cookie consent implemented. However, it lacks advanced security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options, which are recommended to mitigate common web vulnerabilities. The absence of DNSSEC reduces DNS security. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies are published, which limits transparency and preparedness for security incidents. The site does not expose sensitive data or show signs of vulnerable libraries. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but could be significantly improved by adopting best practices and publishing clear security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement essential security headers including CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Publish a clear security policy and incident response plan accessible on the website.
  4. Establish a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  5. Enhance privacy compliance by auditing cookie usage and updating privacy policy to reflect GDPR and other regulations.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Newsmatics Inc. dba Affinity Group Publishing & 50 States Today
Description
50 States Today is an online news publication focusing on the United States: The top news stories from the United States
Key services
News aggregation, Press release publishing, Email news alerts
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Google Tag Manager, Vanilla Cookie Consent
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a US-focused news and press release platform.
  2. Content is current and relevant with multiple recent press releases and news articles.
  3. Clear contact phone number and contact page available.
  4. Cookie consent implemented indicating some privacy awareness.
  5. No explicit security policies or incident response information found.
  6. No DNSSEC enabled, which is a minor security gap.
  7. No security headers detected in HTML content.
  8. Uses Google Tag Manager for analytics and tracking.
  9. No adult or questionable content detected.
  10. Domain registration is consistent and not privacy protected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern tech stack with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, supported by Google Tag Manager for analytics. The presence of Turbo-progress-bar CSS indicates use of Turbo framework or similar for performance optimization. The site is mobile optimized and SEO friendly with proper meta tags and structured navigation. Hosting details are not explicit but DNS points to newsmatics.com nameservers. Performance is moderate with no major issues detected. Technical debt appears low but security-related technical improvements are needed. The site uses custom CMS or proprietary platform without common CMS footprints like WordPress or Joomla.
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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