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Security report for carrentals.com

CarRentals.com · Transportation · N/a

Low risk. 3 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

82/100

Risk levelLow

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

CarRentals.com is a large-scale online car rental booking platform offering services at over 29,000 locations across 197 countries. The website targets general consumers seeking affordable and convenient car rental options worldwide. It provides a streamlined booking experience with discount coupons and multi-location rental capabilities, positioning itself as a trusted player with over 8 million customers. Technically, the site leverages modern web technologies including React and JavaScript, hosted on a CDN likely provided by Akamai, ensuring fast performance and excellent mobile optimization. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and secure form handling, though explicit security headers and policies are not evident. Privacy compliance is weak due to missing privacy and cookie policies in the analyzed content. The absence of WHOIS data is a notable anomaly, reducing trust slightly despite the professional presentation and market presence. Overall, the site is professional and functional but would benefit from enhanced transparency and privacy compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
85/ 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. 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

  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 carrentals.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
62
Security headers
75
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
85
Average
82

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

CarRentals.com operates in the transportation sector as an essential business entity. Its business model revolves around aggregating car rental offers and facilitating bookings online, generating revenue likely through commissions and partnerships. The platform's extensive global coverage and large customer base indicate strong market positioning and competitive advantage. The website integrates with multiple external domains for assets and marketing, including Bing Ads and Google Tag Manager, reflecting a mature marketing ecosystem. However, the lack of visible contact information and corporate details limits direct customer engagement insights. Strategic partnerships and a broad service offering support growth and customer retention.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a good security baseline with HTTPS enabled and secure handling of user inputs in forms. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content Security Policy, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options suggests room for improvement in defense-in-depth. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the provided content. The lack of published security policies, incident response contacts, or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms indicates limited transparency in security governance. Privacy compliance is weak, with no clear GDPR indicators or cookie consent mechanisms observed. Overall, the security posture is moderate but could be enhanced by adopting best practices and improving user trust through transparency.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear GDPR compliance statements.
  2. Add standard security headers including Content Security Policy, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options to strengthen security posture.
  3. Provide visible security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and trust.
  4. Investigate and resolve the absence of WHOIS data or clarify domain registration details to enhance legitimacy.
  5. Enhance user trust by including verified contact information such as company emails and phone numbers on the website.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
CarRentals.com
Description
Find cheap car rentals at over 29,000 locations in 197 countries ✓ Rent a car coupons and deals ✓ Book in 60 seconds ✓ Trusted by 8+ million customers
Key services
Car rental booking, Discount coupons and deals, Multi-location rental options
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, CSS, Akamai (CDN), Bing Ads, Google Tag Manager
Frameworks
React
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure form inputs

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Bing Ads
Tracking pixels
Bing Pixel
Transparency
basic

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 interactive forms.
  2. No WHOIS data available, which is unusual for a commercial domain.
  3. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages detected in provided HTML snippet.
  4. Strong branding and professional design consistent with a large transportation booking platform.
  5. Use of multiple external domains for assets and tracking.
  6. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided content.
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  8. No explicit security policy or incident response contact information found.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using modern web technologies, primarily React and JavaScript, with CSS for styling. It uses a CDN infrastructure, likely Akamai, for asset delivery, contributing to fast load times and good performance. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with semantic HTML and ARIA attributes implied by class naming conventions. SEO is supported by appropriate meta tags and Open Graph data. However, no CMS was detected, suggesting a custom or proprietary platform. The technical implementation is robust, but the lack of explicit security headers and privacy mechanisms indicates areas for modernization and compliance improvements.
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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