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Security report for essence.com

Essence · Media · N/a

Low risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

76/100

Risk levelLow

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

Essence is a prominent media company specializing in content for Black women, covering lifestyle, fashion, beauty, entertainment, and culture. The website demonstrates a mature digital presence with extensive content, multimedia integration, and a professional design that appeals to its target audience. The technical infrastructure leverages WordPress CMS, modern JavaScript libraries, and multiple third-party analytics and advertising platforms, indicating a well-developed digital marketing and monetization strategy. Security posture is generally strong with HTTPS enforced and no visible critical vulnerabilities, though the absence of explicit privacy and cookie policies and lack of visible contact information for security or business inquiries represent areas for improvement. The WHOIS data is unavailable, which reduces transparency and trustworthiness from a domain registration perspective. Overall, the website is a high-quality media platform with room to enhance privacy compliance and security transparency.

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

5 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
    • 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 essence.com

This scan found 18 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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Full report

€39.90one-time

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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
52
Security headers
65
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
70
Average
76

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

Essence holds a strong market position as a leading media brand focused on Black culture and lifestyle. Its business model centers on content publishing supported by advertising and subscription services. The company targets Black women and culturally engaged audiences, offering news, celebrity coverage, fashion and beauty trends, lifestyle articles, video content, and event promotions. The site links to several partner and subsidiary domains, indicating a broad partnership ecosystem. The use of advanced analytics and advertising technologies suggests a data-driven approach to audience engagement and monetization. Despite the lack of public WHOIS data, the brand's established reputation and professional web presence support its credibility in the media sector.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and integrates security-conscious third-party services such as New Relic for monitoring. However, it lacks visible security headers and published security policies, which are best practices for modern web security. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The absence of a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file limits the ability for external security researchers to report issues responsibly. Privacy compliance is minimal, with no explicit privacy or cookie policies found in the provided content, which may expose the company to regulatory risks. Incident response contact information is also missing, reducing preparedness for security events. Overall, the security posture is moderate but could be significantly improved by adopting comprehensive policies and transparency measures.

Recommendations

  1. Publish clear and comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with user consent mechanisms to enhance GDPR and global privacy compliance.
  2. Implement and configure security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to strengthen web security.
  3. Provide visible contact information for security incidents, including an incident response email or form.
  4. Establish and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible security reporting.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and dependencies to mitigate risks from vulnerable libraries.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Essence
Description
Essence is a media company focused on Black women's lifestyle, covering topics such as celebrity, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, entertainment, and culture.
Key services
News and articles, Celebrity coverage, Fashion and beauty trends, Lifestyle content, Video content, Events and promotions
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, TikTok Analytics, PubMatic, Freestar Ads, New Relic Browser Agent, Pushly SDK, Bounce Exchange, Privacy Management SDK
Frameworks
Yoast SEO, New Relic monitoring
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of security and analytics scripts with async/defer
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via GTM), TikTok Analytics, Parsely
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Freestar, PubMatic, DoubleClick, Bounce Exchange
Tracking pixels
BidSwitch, Bounce Exchange, Intentiq, Privacy Management SDK
Marketing tools
TikTok Analytics, Pushly SDK
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 multimedia
  2. No WAF or security challenge blocking access
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie policy found in the provided HTML
  4. No visible contact emails or phone numbers in the HTML content
  5. Strong use of third-party advertising and analytics services
  6. Professional and consistent branding and design
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found
  8. WHOIS data unavailable, raising transparency concerns
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with a modern front-end leveraging jQuery and various asynchronous JavaScript libraries for analytics, advertising, and user engagement. It uses Google Tag Manager, TikTok Analytics, and multiple ad networks including Freestar and PubMatic. The site is optimized for mobile devices and employs SEO best practices with comprehensive meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD). Performance is moderate, with deferred script loading and CDN usage. Accessibility features appear adequate, and navigation is clear and user-friendly. Technical debt is minimal, but the site could benefit from enhanced security headers and privacy compliance implementations to reduce regulatory and security risks.
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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