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Security report for apartments.com

Apartments.com · Real Estate · United States

Partial score · DNS & email only

70/100

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

Apartments.com is a leading online real estate rental marketplace focused on apartments, homes, townhomes, and condos for rent primarily in the United States. Owned by CoStar Group, the platform offers comprehensive rental listings, online application and lease signing capabilities, and property management tools. The website targets renters and property managers, providing extensive market data, calculators, and resources to facilitate rental decisions and property management. The brand is well-established with a large market presence and multiple subsidiary and partner sites under the CoStar umbrella. Technically, Apartments.com employs a modern and robust technology stack including Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Maps API, ReCaptcha, and performance monitoring tools like Boomerang. The site is hosted on a high-performance CDN likely Akamai, ensuring fast load times and excellent mobile optimization. The website is well-structured with strong SEO and accessibility features, providing a professional and user-friendly experience. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, uses ReCaptcha for bot mitigation, and implements cookie consent via OneTrust, demonstrating good privacy compliance and user protection. However, explicit security headers and a public security policy or incident response contacts are not evident, representing areas for improvement. The WHOIS data is unavailable due to query limitations, but the website's legitimacy is supported by its association with CoStar Group and consistent trust signals. Overall, Apartments.com presents a secure, professional, and comprehensive platform for rental listings and property management with strong business credibility and technical maturity. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security header implementation, publishing a security policy, and establishing a vulnerability disclosure program to further strengthen trust and compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
73/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
6of 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

2 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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.

    • Critical

      Unable to retrieve SSL certificate

      Could not establish secure connection to retrieve certificate information

      What to do: Check if the server is accessible and SSL/TLS is properly configured

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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 apartments.com

This scan found 8 issues across 5 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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Full report

€39.90one-time

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Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
0
Email security
85
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
73
Average
70

Not counted

  • Security headers: did not complete in this scan.
  • 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

Apartments.com holds a dominant position in the US rental market as part of CoStar Group's portfolio, leveraging a broad network of subsidiary brands and partner sites to capture diverse rental segments. Its business model combines marketplace listings with SaaS-like property management tools, generating revenue from advertising, listing fees, and value-added services. The platform targets renters seeking convenient, comprehensive rental search and application processes, as well as property managers requiring efficient management solutions. Growth is supported by extensive market data, mobile apps, and integration with analytics and marketing tools. Partnerships with related real estate platforms enhance reach and service offerings, positioning Apartments.com as a comprehensive rental ecosystem.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS, bot protection via Google ReCaptcha, and user privacy controls through OneTrust cookie consent. The absence of explicit security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options suggests room for improvement in defense-in-depth. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. The lack of a published security policy or incident response contact limits transparency and readiness communication. Overall, the security measures are strong but could be enhanced by adopting additional HTTP headers and formalizing vulnerability disclosure and incident response processes.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including CSP, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options to strengthen browser security.
  2. Publish a clear security policy and provide incident response contact information to improve transparency and trust.
  3. Establish a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and dependencies to ensure no vulnerable libraries are included.
  5. Enhance user privacy controls and data retention disclosures to align with evolving compliance requirements.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
CoStar Realty Information Inc.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Apartments.com
Description
Find apartments, homes, townhomes and condos for rent in your area. Compare up to date rates and availability, HD videos, high resolution photos, pet policies and more!
Key services
Apartment, house, condo, townhome rental listings, Online rental applications and lease signing, Property management tools, Rental market trends and calculators
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google Maps API, Google ReCaptcha, Boomerang (performance monitoring), Pusher (real-time messaging), Sift (fraud detection), OneTrust (cookie consent), RequireJS (JavaScript module loader)
Frameworks
RequireJS
Platforms
Web desktop, Mobile apps (iOS and Android)
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Google ReCaptcha enabled
  • Cookie consent via OneTrust
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with validation

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Comscore, Sift, MazeTag
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google DoubleClick
Tracking pixels
Comscore, Sift
Marketing tools
Pusher, MazeTag
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. Strong brand presence with consistent branding and professional design.
  3. Comprehensive rental listings and property management tools offered.
  4. Multiple social media channels actively linked.
  5. Good privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanisms.
  6. No explicit security policy or incident response contacts found.
  7. WHOIS data unavailable, but website legitimacy supported by business info and parent company.
  8. Use of modern web technologies and performance monitoring tools.
  9. No adult or questionable content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

Apartments.com is built on a modern web technology stack utilizing asynchronous JavaScript loading, module loaders (RequireJS), and integration with multiple third-party services for analytics, performance monitoring, and marketing. The site leverages Google Maps API for geolocation features and uses a CDN (likely Akamai) for content delivery, ensuring fast performance and scalability. Mobile optimization is excellent with dedicated iOS and Android apps promoted. The site architecture supports rich content, dynamic search, and user account management. Technical risks are minimal, but reliance on multiple third-party scripts necessitates ongoing security and performance monitoring to mitigate potential vulnerabilities or performance degradation.
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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