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Security report for deadline.com

Deadline · Media · United States

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

Security score

75/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Deadline.com is a well-established entertainment news website focused on Hollywood and media industry breaking news and analysis. It operates under the parent company Penske Media Corporation, leveraging a WordPress-based platform hosted on AWS infrastructure. The site employs modern web technologies including Google Tag Manager and OneTrust for cookie consent, indicating a moderate level of digital maturity. Security posture is adequate with domain transfer protections and cookie consent mechanisms, but lacks visible security headers and explicit security policies. Privacy compliance is partial, with cookie consent present but no explicit privacy or terms of service pages detected in the analyzed content. Overall, Deadline.com presents a professional and trustworthy media outlet with room for improvement in security and privacy transparency.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
100/ 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

  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 deadline.com

This scan found 19 issues across 5 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

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  • 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
42
Security headers
45
Email security
90
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
100
Average
75

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 deadline.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
238
Employees
0
Customers
168
Third parties
70
Weak passwords
22%

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 deadline.com.

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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

Deadline holds a strong market position as a leading source for entertainment and Hollywood news, targeting a general audience interested in media updates. Its business model centers on media publishing and advertising, utilizing ad networks like Google DoubleClick and BlogHer Ads. The company benefits from its association with Penske Media Corporation, enhancing its credibility and operational scale. The website's content quality and branding are consistent, supporting user trust and engagement. However, the absence of explicit contact information and security policies on the homepage suggests potential areas for enhancing user trust and compliance. The partnership ecosystem includes major ad and tracking providers, reflecting standard industry practices.

Security posture

The security maturity of Deadline.com is moderate. The domain is secured with clientTransferProhibited status and hosted on reputable AWS infrastructure. Cookie consent is managed via OneTrust, and Google Tag Manager is used for analytics. However, the lack of detected security headers such as Content Security Policy, HSTS, or X-Frame-Options reduces the overall security posture. No vulnerability disclosure or incident response information is published, which could hinder rapid response to security incidents. The site does not appear to use DNSSEC, which is recommended to enhance DNS security. Overall, while no critical vulnerabilities are evident, improvements in security headers, transparency, and incident response readiness are advisable.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy policy and terms of service pages to enhance compliance and user trust.
  3. Add security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options to strengthen web security.
  4. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Provide clear contact information including security incident response contacts to improve transparency and responsiveness.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Deadline
Description
Deadline.com is always the first to break up-to-the-minute entertainment, Hollywood and media news, with an unfiltered, no-holds-barred analysis of events.
Key services
Entertainment news reporting, Hollywood and media industry analysis
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, OneTrust Cookie Consent, AWS DNS hosting
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
60/100
Good practices seen
  • Use of clientTransferProhibited domain status
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (implied via GTM)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Google DoubleClick, BlogHer Ads
Tracking pixels
OneTrust Cookie Consent
Marketing tools
OneTrust
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional entertainment news outlet with a long history.
  2. Uses WordPress CMS with modern web technologies.
  3. Implements cookie consent via OneTrust.
  4. No explicit privacy policy or terms of service found in the provided content.
  5. No direct contact information or security policies published on the homepage.
  6. Advertising and tracking are present but standard for media sites.
  7. No WAF or blocking detected; content fully accessible.
  8. WHOIS data supports domain legitimacy and business consistency.
Technical notes

Notes

Deadline.com uses a WordPress CMS platform with a modern tech stack including jQuery and Google Tag Manager. Hosting is managed via AWS DNS services, indicating reliable infrastructure. The site is optimized for mobile with responsive design and preloaded fonts for performance. Cookie consent is integrated using OneTrust, reflecting attention to privacy compliance. Performance is moderate with standard ad network integrations. Accessibility features are basic but present. SEO optimization is good with appropriate meta tags and structured data. Technical risks include lack of DNSSEC and missing security headers, which could be addressed to reduce attack surface and improve resilience.
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. 75/100Medium27 findingsView report
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