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Security report for adweek.com

Adweek · Media · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

66/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Adweek is a leading U.S.-based media publication specializing in advertising, media, and marketing news. It serves a professional audience of marketers, advertisers, and media professionals with a broad range of content including news, analysis, and industry events. The website demonstrates a mature digital infrastructure built on WordPress with modern JavaScript frameworks like React, and integrates multiple analytics and advertising technologies to optimize user engagement and monetization. Security posture is strong with HTTPS, security headers, and sanitization libraries in use, though explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not publicly disclosed. Privacy compliance is well addressed with clear privacy and cookie policies and consent mechanisms. The WHOIS data is unavailable, likely due to privacy protection, which is justified given the business type. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and technically sound, with room for improvement in transparency around security policies and vulnerability disclosures.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of adweek.com. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
65/ 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. 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 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

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

Keep watching adweek.com

This scan found 24 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
65
Security headers
20
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
65
Average
66

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention adweek.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
2,360
Employees
0
Customers
2,322
Third parties
38
Weak passwords
12%

18 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for adweek.com.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

Adweek holds a strong market position as a premier trade publication in the advertising and media industry, backed by a large enterprise structure and a parent company, Beringer Capital. Its business model relies on subscription revenue, advertising, and sponsored content. The company targets advertising professionals and marketers, offering key services such as news, industry insights, and events. The presence of subsidiaries like Brandweek and Mediaweek expands its market footprint. The website's content quality and branding consistency reinforce its credibility and trustworthiness in the industry.

Security posture

The website exhibits a high level of security maturity with enforced HTTPS, comprehensive security headers, and use of sanitization libraries to prevent XSS attacks. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a public security policy, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms indicates gaps in transparency and readiness. The site would benefit from publishing these policies and establishing clear channels for security incident reporting to enhance trust and compliance.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and compliance.
  2. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program and security.txt file.
  3. Add incident response contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance form security by ensuring anti-CSRF tokens and validating all inputs server-side.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Adweek
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Adweek
Description
Adweek is a U.S.-based weekly trade publication covering the business of advertising. It covers a wide range of advertising-related topics including media, technology, creativity, and brand marketing.
Key services
News and analysis in advertising, media, and technology, Industry events and conferences, Subscription-based premium content, Advertising and marketing insights
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress CMS, React.js, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Quantcast, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Amazon Ads, Slick Carousel, DOMPurify, YouTube Embed Plus
Frameworks
React
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of CSP and other security headers
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of DOMPurify for sanitization
  • Secure forms with reCAPTCHA

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Quantcast, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Parsely
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ad Manager, Amazon Ads, ML314, HTLBid
Tracking pixels
Quantcast, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Parsely, Pushly
Marketing tools
Lytics
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and no blocking detected.
  2. Professional media publication with strong brand presence.
  3. Extensive use of modern web technologies and analytics.
  4. Good privacy and cookie policy presence with consent mechanisms.
  5. No security or incident response policies publicly found.
  6. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt detected.
  7. WHOIS data unavailable, likely due to privacy protection.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a robust WordPress CMS platform enhanced with React for navigation and interactive components. It leverages multiple third-party services including Google Analytics, LinkedIn Insight Tag, and Amazon Ads for analytics and monetization. The site is optimized for mobile with responsive design and good accessibility features. Performance is fast with preconnects and asynchronous loading of scripts. The technical stack is modern and well-maintained, though continuous monitoring and updates are essential to maintain security and performance standards.
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. 68/100Medium30 findingsView report
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