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Security report for detroitnews.com

The Detroit News · Media · United States

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Detroit News is a well-established regional media company focused on delivering news, sports, business, and entertainment content primarily for the Detroit and Michigan area. Owned by Gannett, it operates a large-scale digital news platform with extensive advertising and analytics integrations. The website demonstrates a mature technical infrastructure leveraging modern web technologies including Polymer web components, extensive third-party ad networks, and compliance tools such as OneTrust for GDPR and CCPA. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities, though improvements can be made by adding security headers and publishing explicit security policies. Privacy compliance is supported by cookie consent mechanisms but lacks visible privacy and terms of service pages in the provided content. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and well-positioned in its market segment.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
70/ 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

4 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. 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

  3. 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

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching detroitnews.com

This scan found 20 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.

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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
62
Security headers
40
Email security
90
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
70
Average
74

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

The Detroit News holds a strong market position as a leading regional news provider in Detroit and Michigan. Its business model is primarily advertising-supported with subscription options. The company benefits from its parent company Gannett's infrastructure and partnerships, enabling access to advanced ad networks and analytics platforms. The target audience is broad, encompassing general news consumers interested in local and regional news. The website's content quality and branding are consistent, supporting a high level of trust and engagement. The partnership ecosystem includes major ad networks and content recommendation platforms like Taboola, enhancing monetization and user engagement.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and integrates a comprehensive cookie consent framework via OneTrust, indicating good privacy compliance efforts. However, the absence of explicit security headers and published security policies or incident response contacts suggests room for improvement in transparency and defense-in-depth. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The use of multiple third-party scripts and ad networks necessitates ongoing security monitoring to mitigate risks from external dependencies. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by adopting additional best practices and publishing vulnerability disclosure information.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a clear and accessible privacy policy and terms of service pages linked from the homepage.
  2. Implement and serve security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection.
  3. Add a security policy page and incident response contact information to improve transparency and trust.
  4. Conduct regular audits of third-party scripts and ad networks to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance accessibility features to meet compliance standards and improve user experience for all visitors.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
The Detroit News
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The Detroit News
Description
The Detroit News is a media organization providing news coverage primarily focused on Detroit and Michigan. It offers news, sports, business, entertainment, opinion, and other local content.
Key services
News reporting, Sports coverage, Business news, Entertainment, Opinion pieces, Digital newspaper (eNewspaper), Newsletters, Podcasts
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, Polymer, Web Components, OneTrust cookie consent, Google Analytics, Adobe Audience Manager, Amazon APS, Prebid.js, Taboola, Criteo, IAS (Integral Ad Science), Teads, TripleLift, TrustX, Undertone, Yieldmo, LiveIntent
Frameworks
Polymer Web Components
Platforms
Web (desktop and mobile), AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of OneTrust for GDPR and CCPA compliance
  • No exposed sensitive data detected in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Adobe Audience Manager, Integral Ad Science (IAS), Polar, Simplereach
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Amazon APS, AppNexus, Criteo, OpenX, Rubicon, Sonobi, Teads, TripleLift, TrustX, Undertone, Yahoo SSP, Yieldmo
Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, Adobe Audience Manager, Integral Ad Science (IAS), LiveIntent
Marketing tools
OneTrust, Taboola, Polar
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website uses extensive third-party ad and analytics services.
  2. Strong compliance with GDPR and CCPA via OneTrust.
  3. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found in the HTML content.
  4. No visible privacy policy or terms of service links in the provided HTML snippet.
  5. Modern web technologies and frameworks used for UI.
  6. Good mobile optimization and responsive design.
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure found.
  8. No explicit security policy or incident response information found.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern technology stack including Polymer web components and a variety of third-party advertising and analytics services. It is hosted on Gannett's CDN infrastructure, ensuring reliable content delivery. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and responsive design. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD). Accessibility is basic but could be improved. The site uses extensive client-side JavaScript and asynchronous loading of scripts to optimize user experience. There is no indication of legacy or deprecated technologies, suggesting a well-maintained technical environment.
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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