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Security report for buffalonews.com

Lee Enterprises · Media · United States

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS.

Security score

79/100

Risk levelLow

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

Buffalo News is a well-established regional news media outlet serving Buffalo, NY, and Erie County, operated under Lee Enterprises. The website provides comprehensive local news, weather, entertainment, and event coverage, supported by subscription and advertising revenue models. The digital platform is built on a modern technology stack including Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Amazon Publisher Services, and a proprietary CMS (BLOX). It demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices. Privacy compliance is robust with a clear privacy policy, cookie consent mechanism, and GDPR adherence. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforcement, reCAPTCHA Enterprise integration, and consent management, though some security headers could be improved. The domain is longstanding and consistent with the business profile, enhancing trustworthiness. Overall, the website is professional, secure, and compliant, serving a general audience with safe content.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
95/ 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

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.

    • 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 buffalonews.com

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.

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
42
Security headers
85
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
95
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

Buffalo News holds a strong market position as a leading regional news provider in Western New York. Its business model combines digital subscriptions and advertising, leveraging partnerships with legacy.com for obituaries and other service providers for e-commerce and video content. The company targets local residents and news consumers interested in Buffalo and Erie County. The parent company, Lee Enterprises, supports the operation, indicating a large enterprise scale. The website's content quality and branding consistency support its credibility and audience engagement. The advertising ecosystem is extensive but transparent, with multiple ad networks and tracking services employed.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and use of advanced bot protection via Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise. Consent management is handled by Osano, ensuring GDPR compliance. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, and some security headers like X-Frame-Options and X-Content-Type-Options are not explicitly present, which could be improved. Incident response and security policy information are not publicly available, representing an area for enhancement. Overall, the site balances user experience with security and privacy effectively.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement and verify security headers such as X-Frame-Options and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and provide incident response contact information.
  4. Consider adding a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability disclosures.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and ad networks for security and privacy compliance.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Lee Enterprises
Description
Read the latest Buffalo, NY, and Erie County news from the Buffalo News. Get headlines on local weather, entertainment, and events.
Key services
Local news reporting, Weather updates, Entertainment and events coverage, E-edition digital newspaper, Subscription services
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise, Amazon Publisher Services, Prebid.js, jQuery, Bootstrap, Osano Consent Management, Firebase Messaging
Frameworks
BLOX CMS (Lee Enterprises proprietary), Bootstrap
Platforms
Web, Mobile responsive
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of reCAPTCHA Enterprise for bot protection
  • Consent management via Osano
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure logout form with POST

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Parsely
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ad Manager (DoubleClick), Amazon Publisher Services, AdLightning
Tracking pixels
ScorecardResearch, BlueConic, Rubicon Project, PubMatic, 3lift, SpotX, Crwdcntrl
Marketing tools
Osano Consent Management
Transparency
good

Site quality

Design
good
User experience
good
Content relevance
good
Navigation
good
Professionalism
good
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional regional news media outlet for Buffalo, NY and Erie County.
  2. Uses modern web technologies and consent management for privacy compliance.
  3. Strong presence of advertising and tracking scripts consistent with media business model.
  4. No signs of malicious content or security blocking.
  5. WHOIS data supports legitimacy and long-term operation.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a proprietary CMS (BLOX) combined with popular frameworks like Bootstrap and jQuery. It integrates multiple third-party services for analytics, advertising, and consent management. Performance is moderate with good mobile responsiveness and accessibility features. The site uses modern SEO meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD) for organization and social media integration. Technical debt appears low, but continuous monitoring of third-party dependencies is recommended to mitigate risks. Hosting appears stable, likely managed by Lee Enterprises or associated CDN providers.
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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