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Security report for bitly.com

Bitly, Inc. · Technology · United States

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

79/100

Risk levelLow

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

Bitly, Inc. operates a leading SaaS platform known as the Bitly Connections Platform, offering URL shortening, QR code generation, link management, analytics, and landing page solutions. The company targets businesses and professionals seeking to enhance digital engagement and brand connections. Bitly holds a strong market position with millions of users, extensive integrations, and a comprehensive product suite that supports various industries including retail, healthcare, technology, and finance. The platform supports multiple languages and offers both free and enterprise-grade paid plans. Technically, Bitly leverages a modern infrastructure including WordPress CMS, nginx web server, Amazon Cloudfront CDN, and integrates marketing and analytics tools such as Google Tag Manager, HubSpot, Optimizely, and ProfitWell. The website demonstrates excellent performance, mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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

2 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. 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 bitly.com

This scan found 15 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

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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
97
Security headers
45
Email security
85
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
79

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

Bitly's business model centers on SaaS offerings with tiered plans, focusing on link management and QR code solutions that cater to diverse industries and team sizes. The company benefits from a broad partner ecosystem including HubSpot, Canva, Mailgun, Salesforce, and Zendesk, enhancing its platform capabilities. Bitly's extensive integrations and robust analytics provide competitive advantages in customer engagement and data-driven marketing. The platform's adoption by over 500,000 paying customers and creation of hundreds of millions of links monthly indicate strong growth and market penetration. The company emphasizes trust and compliance, maintaining a Trust Center and accessibility standards, which supports enterprise adoption and regulatory compliance.

Security posture

Bitly exhibits a mature security posture with valid DigiCert SSL certificates, strict security headers such as X-Frame-Options and HSTS, and secure cookie attributes. The absence of vulnerable SSL/TLS protocols and known vulnerabilities like Heartbleed or POODLE further strengthen its security. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, and CAA records appear undefined, representing areas for improvement. The site includes a Trust Center but lacks explicit incident response or vulnerability disclosure pages and security.txt files. Privacy and cookie policies are comprehensive and GDPR compliant, supported by consent mechanisms. Overall, Bitly demonstrates good security hygiene but could enhance DNS security and transparency around incident handling.

Recommendations

  1. Enable TLS 1.2 or higher protocols to ensure modern encryption standards and compatibility.
  2. Implement DNSSEC to protect against DNS spoofing and enhance domain security.
  3. Define and correct CAA DNS records to restrict certificate issuance to authorized CAs.
  4. Consider submitting the domain to the HSTS preload list for improved HTTPS enforcement.
  5. Publish a security.txt file and a dedicated vulnerability disclosure policy to improve transparency and facilitate responsible reporting.
Technical notes

Notes

The website infrastructure is built on a WordPress CMS with nginx as the web server and Amazon Cloudfront as the CDN, ensuring fast content delivery and scalability. The tech stack includes modern JavaScript libraries like jQuery and integrations with marketing and analytics platforms such as HubSpot, Optimizely, and ProfitWell. Deferred and asynchronous script loading optimizes page load performance. The site supports multiple languages with hreflang tags and localized URLs, enhancing global reach. Accessibility is addressed via the UserWay widget and an accessibility report. While performance is fast and mobile optimization excellent, the lack of DNSSEC and incomplete CAA records indicate technical debt in DNS security. Overall, the technical setup is robust with opportunities for DNS security enhancements.
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. 80/100 +1Low24 findingsView report
  2. 79/100 −3Low25 findingsView report
  3. 82/100Low23 findingsView report
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