Skip to main content

Security report for bertelsmann.com

Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA · Media · Germany

Medium risk. 3 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA is a leading international media conglomerate headquartered in Germany, operating through multiple divisions such as RTL Group, Penguin Random House, BMG, and Arvato Group. The company provides a wide range of media, publishing, entertainment, and service offerings targeting journalists, investors, applicants, and the general public. The website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive corporate, investor, and media information, supported by strong branding and consistent content quality. Technically, the site uses established technologies like jQuery, Bootstrap, and Cookiebot for consent management, hosted on AWS CloudFront CDN. However, the absence of a valid SSL/TLS certificate and disabled HTTPS protocols represent critical security gaps. Security headers and content security policies are implemented but cannot compensate for the lack of HTTPS, which is essential for protecting user data and trust. Privacy compliance is well addressed with a clear privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism. Overall, the site is professional and trustworthy but requires urgent security improvements to meet modern standards.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
43/ 100 · High
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 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
  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 bertelsmann.com

This scan found 16 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.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. The full timeline opens with your unlock code.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

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
50
Security headers
50
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
43
Average
63

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 bertelsmann.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
36
Employees
0
Customers
36
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
6%

6 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 bertelsmann.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

Bertelsmann holds a strong market position in the media industry with diversified revenue streams from broadcasting, publishing, music rights, business services, printing, education, and investments. The company targets a broad audience including media professionals, investors, and job seekers. Its ecosystem includes several subsidiaries and partner domains, reflecting a complex but well-integrated corporate structure. The presence of detailed financial reports and investor relations content indicates transparency and a focus on shareholder communication. The company leverages multiple external services for analytics, marketing, and media delivery, demonstrating a mature digital marketing strategy. Growth indicators include recent news about investments and financial performance. The partnership ecosystem includes domains related to career development and media services, supporting Bertelsmann's business model.

Security posture

The website's security posture is currently weak due to the lack of a valid SSL/TLS certificate and disabled HTTPS protocols, which are critical for secure communications. While security headers such as CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options are present, the absence of HTTPS severely undermines overall security. No HSTS policy is enabled, and OCSP stapling is missing, reducing protection against certain attacks. Session management uses HttpOnly cookies, which is positive. No explicit incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is found, indicating potential gaps in security transparency and readiness. The site uses third-party services for analytics and marketing, which may increase privacy risks if not properly managed. Overall, the security risks are significant and should be addressed promptly to protect users and corporate assets.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and configure a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable deprecated versions.
  3. Activate HSTS with includeSubDomains and preload to enforce secure connections.
  4. Enable OCSP stapling to improve certificate revocation checking performance and security.
  5. Provide explicit incident response and vulnerability disclosure information on the website.
  6. Review and tighten Content Security Policy to remove 'unsafe-inline' and 'unsafe-eval' directives where possible.
  7. Enhance accessibility features and performance optimizations for better user experience.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using legacy jQuery 1.9.1 and Bootstrap CSS/JS frameworks, combined with Font Awesome icons and the Plyr video player. Cookiebot is used for cookie consent management, and Google Tag Manager handles analytics and marketing tags. Hosting is via Amazon CloudFront CDN with an Apache server backend. The site is mobile responsive and SEO optimized with proper meta tags and Open Graph data. However, the lack of HTTPS and modern TLS protocols is a critical technical deficiency. Performance data is unavailable, but the use of multiple external domains for media and analytics suggests a complex infrastructure. No CMS is explicitly detected, indicating a custom or proprietary solution. Technical debt is indicated by the use of outdated jQuery and missing modern security configurations. Modernization opportunities include upgrading JavaScript libraries, improving SSL/TLS setup, and enhancing accessibility compliance.
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

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with bertelsmann.com. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review bertelsmann.com.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.