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Security report for ard.de

ARD · Media · Germany

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view.

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

ARD is a prominent German public broadcasting organization offering a wide range of media services including news, sports, podcasts, and children's programming. It operates through multiple regional subsidiaries and maintains a strong market position as a trusted media provider in Germany. The website serves as a central hub linking to various ARD services and partner broadcasters, targeting a broad German-speaking audience. Technically, the site uses modern web technologies such as React and Swiper.js and is hosted on Google Cloud infrastructure. However, the website currently suffers from a critical security issue due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols, which severely impacts its security posture. Despite this, DNS configurations like SPF and DMARC are properly set, indicating good email security practices. Privacy compliance is evident with a comprehensive privacy policy and terms of service, though no explicit cookie consent mechanism was detected. Overall, the site demonstrates excellent content quality and business credibility but requires urgent security improvements to protect user data and maintain trust.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of ard.de. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
15/ 100 · Critical
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

4 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. GDPR outside view

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

    • Critical

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

    • High

      No Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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 ard.de

This scan found 19 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
95
Security headers
70
Email security
75
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
15
Average
73

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 ard.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
7,730
Employees
0
Customers
7,690
Third parties
40
Weak passwords
7%

37 subdomains affected

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Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

ARD operates as a publicly funded media entity with a decentralized structure comprising multiple regional broadcasters. Its business model relies on public broadcasting fees and government funding, focusing on delivering high-quality news, cultural content, and entertainment to the German public. The organization maintains a broad partnership ecosystem with sister broadcasters and related media outlets, enhancing its content diversity and reach. The website reflects this ecosystem by linking extensively to partner domains and subsidiaries. ARD's market positioning is strong, with a reputation for trustworthy and comprehensive media coverage. The digital presence is mature, leveraging modern frontend frameworks and cloud hosting, but the lack of proper HTTPS implementation poses a risk to user trust and data security. Growth indicators include active podcast offerings and multimedia content, targeting diverse audience segments including children and sports fans.

Security posture

The current security posture of the ARD website is compromised by the absence of a valid SSL certificate and the disabling of all TLS protocols, resulting in no secure HTTPS connection. This is a critical vulnerability that exposes users to potential interception and undermines trust. On the positive side, DNS security practices such as SPF and DMARC are correctly configured, reducing the risk of email spoofing. The site employs HSTS with includeSubDomains, which is a good security practice, but without valid TLS, this is ineffective. No advanced security headers beyond HSTS were detected, and no incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies are publicly available. The lack of OCSP stapling and session resumption further indicates suboptimal SSL/TLS configuration. Overall, the site requires immediate remediation of its SSL/TLS setup to meet basic security standards and comply with GDPR requirements for data protection.

Recommendations

  1. Renew and properly configure a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire domain.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable deprecated protocols to enhance security.
  3. Implement a cookie consent mechanism to comply with GDPR and improve user privacy transparency.
  4. Add additional security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  5. Publish a clear vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact information to improve security transparency and readiness.
Technical notes

Notes

The ARD website is built using modern web technologies including React and Swiper.js for interactive UI components. It is hosted on Google Cloud infrastructure, as indicated by the IP address and DNS records. The site has a large number of resources (66) and a relatively large page size (~475 KB), contributing to a slow load time (~8.5 seconds), which could be optimized for better performance. Mobile optimization is good, with responsive meta tags and mobile-friendly design elements. SEO is well addressed with comprehensive meta tags and Open Graph data. Accessibility is basic but could be improved with more ARIA attributes and semantic HTML enhancements. DNS configuration is robust with multiple TXT records for SPF, DMARC, and site verification. However, the critical lack of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols represent significant technical debt and risk. Addressing these issues will improve both security and user experience.
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. 68/100Medium33 findingsView report
  2. 68/100Medium33 findingsView report
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