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Security report for dssmith.com

DS Smith · Manufacturing · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

51/100

Risk levelMedium

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

DS Smith is a leading international manufacturer specializing in sustainable packaging solutions, paper products, and recycling services. The company positions itself as a global leader in sustainability within the packaging industry, targeting businesses seeking eco-friendly and innovative packaging and recycling options. The website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive content, multi-language support, and strong branding consistency. Technically, the site uses modern web technologies including React, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Microsoft Application Insights, hosted behind Cloudflare for performance and security. However, the SSL certificate is currently invalid or missing, which undermines the security posture. The site implements strong security headers and content security policies but has a notable subdomain takeover vulnerability on shop.dssmith.com. Privacy and cookie policies are present with consent mechanisms, indicating good GDPR compliance. Contact information is primarily via forms and physical address, with no explicit emails or phone numbers on the homepage. Social media presence is robust and consistent with corporate branding.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
18/ 100 · Critical
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

5 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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • 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

  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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • High

      Potential Subdomain Takeover

      Subdomain shop.dssmith.com points to unregistered service epack-prod-elb-552568721.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com

      What to do: Remove or fix CNAME record to prevent subdomain takeover

      • WSTG-CONF-10
      • NIS2 21(2)(i)
      • IR 2024/2690 12.4: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 12.4: Asset inventory
      • NIST CM-8: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-8: System Component Inventory

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

Keep watching dssmith.com

This scan found 13 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
0
Security headers
90
Email security
50
DNS health
65
Network security
85
GDPR outside view
18
Average
51

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

DS Smith operates in the manufacturing sector with a focus on sustainable packaging, paper products, and recycling services. The business model combines product manufacturing with integrated recycling and retail marketing services. The company maintains partnerships, notably with International Paper, and operates multiple regional websites. The website content and structured data confirm a large enterprise with a global footprint headquartered in the UK. The company emphasizes sustainability and innovation as competitive advantages. The presence of detailed investor relations, sustainability reporting, and career sections indicate a mature corporate structure. The website's extensive navigation and content depth support a broad target audience including investors, customers, suppliers, and job seekers.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with several best practices in place such as strict content security policies, HTTP security headers, and secure cookie attributes. However, the absence of a valid SSL certificate is a critical issue that significantly impacts trust and security. The subdomain takeover vulnerability on shop.dssmith.com poses a risk of unauthorized content hosting or phishing. No evidence of exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries was found. The site uses modern analytics and tracking tools with privacy consent mechanisms, supporting compliance with data protection regulations. Incident response and explicit security policies are not publicly documented, which could be improved to enhance security culture and readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Renew and correctly configure the SSL certificate to ensure HTTPS is fully functional and trusted by browsers.
  2. Mitigate the subdomain takeover vulnerability on shop.dssmith.com by properly configuring or removing the DNS record.
  3. Implement and publish a formal security policy and incident response plan accessible to stakeholders.
  4. Enable OCSP stapling and session resumption to improve SSL performance and security.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and dependencies to prevent introduction of vulnerabilities and ensure privacy compliance.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
DS Smith
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using modern web technologies including React for UI components, Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for tracking, and Microsoft Application Insights for telemetry. It is hosted behind Cloudflare, providing CDN and security features. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and preloaded fonts and images for performance. Accessibility features are basic but present. SEO is well addressed with canonical tags, hreflang for internationalization, and structured data in JSON-LD format describing the organization and website. Performance metrics were not available, but the use of Cloudflare and asset preloading suggests moderate to good performance. The invalid SSL certificate is a technical risk that should be prioritized for remediation.
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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