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Security report for automattic.com

Automattic · Technology · United States

Low risk. 3 critical or high findings in Security headers and SSL/TLS.

Security score

76/100

Risk levelLow

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

Automattic Inc. is a leading technology company specializing in open source web platforms and services, notably WordPress.com and WooCommerce. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, the company operates a broad portfolio of products aimed at bloggers, enterprises, and online businesses. Their market position is strong, supported by a large employee base and a commitment to open source principles. The website reflects this with comprehensive content, clear branding, and a focus on community and freedom in software. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern technologies such as Gutenberg and Jetpack, leveraging JavaScript, JSON-LD structured data, and various analytics and marketing tools. The site is fast, mobile-optimized, and accessible, with good SEO practices and a robust technical infrastructure likely hosted on Automattic's own platforms. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, uses domain locking statuses to prevent unauthorized changes, and implements cookie consent mechanisms aligned with GDPR. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, and there is no explicit security policy or vulnerability disclosure page, which could be improved. Overall, Automattic's website demonstrates a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy regulations. The risk profile is low, with recommendations focusing on enhancing DNS security and publishing formal security policies to further strengthen trust and incident response readiness.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
88/ 100 · Low
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

3 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 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. 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
    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching automattic.com

This scan found 17 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
39
Security headers
45
Email security
95
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
88
Average
76

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

Automattic holds a dominant position in the open source web platform market, leveraging flagship products like WordPress.com and WooCommerce to serve a diverse audience from individual bloggers to large enterprises. Their business model combines open source software development with SaaS offerings and plugin ecosystems, generating revenue through premium services and enterprise solutions. The company maintains a strong partnership ecosystem and subsidiary portfolio, reinforcing its market reach and innovation capacity. Growth indicators include a large employee base and active community engagement. Strategic observations highlight Automattic's commitment to freedom, transparency, and user empowerment as key competitive advantages.

Security posture

The security posture of Automattic's website is mature, with enforced HTTPS, domain registration protections, and cookie consent aligned with GDPR. The use of remote login iframes with origin validation and absence of exposed sensitive data indicate good security hygiene. However, the lack of DNSSEC and absence of a public security policy or vulnerability disclosure mechanism represent areas for improvement. Incident response readiness is not explicitly documented, and no dedicated security contact channels were found. Overall, the site balances usability and security effectively but could enhance transparency and DNS security to meet best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to protect against DNS spoofing and improve overall DNS security.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices, compliance, and incident response procedures.
  3. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program, including a security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  4. Add explicit security contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses to improve incident response communication.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and plugins to mitigate risks from vulnerable libraries.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Automattic Inc.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Automattic
Description
We are the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, Longreads, VaultPress, Akismet, Gravatar, Crowdsignal, Cloudup, and more. We believe in making the web a better place, and we believe in Open Source. The vast majority of our work is available under the GPL.
Key services
WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Akismet, Gravatar, Longreads, Beeper, Tumblr, Day One, WP VIP
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Jetpack, Gutenberg, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, JSON-LD, Google Analytics, HubSpot, LinkedIn Insight, WP Emoji, Remote login iframe
Frameworks
WordPress, Gutenberg
Platforms
WordPress.com
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Domain locked with client and server prohibitions
  • Cookie consent banner with customization
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Remote login iframe with origin checks

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (GA4), WordPress.com Stats, HubSpot, LinkedIn Insight
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
HubSpot, LinkedIn Insight
Tracking pixels
WordPress.com Stats, LinkedIn Insight Pixel, HubSpot Tracking
Marketing tools
HubSpot, LinkedIn Insight
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 mechanisms.
  2. Strong brand presence with consistent messaging and open source ethos.
  3. Comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with user consent mechanisms.
  4. No exposed security vulnerabilities or suspicious scripts detected.
  5. Use of modern web technologies and WordPress ecosystem tools.
  6. Active social media presence with verified official accounts.
  7. No adult or questionable content; suitable for general audiences.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a robust WordPress infrastructure enhanced with Jetpack and Gutenberg blocks, ensuring modern content management and interactivity. The use of JSON-LD structured data improves SEO and semantic understanding. Performance is optimized with asynchronous script loading and deferred resources. Mobile optimization and accessibility are well addressed. The technical stack includes analytics and marketing integrations such as Google Analytics, HubSpot, and LinkedIn Insight, supporting data-driven decision making. The site shows no signs of technical debt or outdated components, reflecting a well-maintained and modern digital presence.
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. 78/100Low24 findingsView report
  2. 78/100 +3Low24 findingsView report
  3. 75/100Medium24 findingsView report
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