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Security report for manutd.com

Manchester United · Media · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 8 critical or high findings in Security headers, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

59/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Manchester United's official website serves as a comprehensive digital platform for fans and stakeholders, offering news, media content, ticketing, memberships, and merchandise. The site reflects the club's global stature and commitment to fan engagement through a modern, well-structured, and content-rich interface. The business model focuses on leveraging the club's brand to provide exclusive content and services, including MUTV subscriptions and official merchandise sales. Technically, the website employs a modern React-based framework (Next.js) with Contentful CMS integration, ensuring fast performance, mobile optimization, and strong SEO practices. Security posture is robust with HTTPS enforcement, security headers, and privacy compliance, although there is room for improvement in incident response transparency and vulnerability disclosure. Overall, the site is trustworthy, professional, and aligns well with the expectations of a top-tier sports organization.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
83/ 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

8 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 Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1

  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

  3. DNS health

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

    • High

      Unregistered MX Record

      MX record points to unregistered domain: avscan-beta.visp.viatel.net

      What to do: Remove or fix MX record pointing to unregistered domain

      • RFC 5321 §5.1
      • 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
    • High

      Unregistered MX Record

      MX record points to unregistered domain: avscan-alpha.visp.viatel.net

      What to do: Remove or fix MX record pointing to unregistered domain

      • RFC 5321 §5.1
      • 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 manutd.com

This scan found 27 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
37
Security headers
45
Email security
82
DNS health
5
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
83
Average
59

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

Manchester United maintains a strong market position as one of the world's leading football clubs with a large, engaged fanbase. The website supports multiple revenue streams including ticket sales, memberships, merchandise, and hospitality services. The club's digital ecosystem integrates partnerships with travel and ticketing providers, enhancing fan experience and operational reach. The business model is focused on direct-to-consumer engagement and monetization of exclusive content and experiences. Growth indicators include active promotion of memberships and digital content, as well as a comprehensive online store. The partnership ecosystem includes travel agencies and ticketing platforms, reflecting a mature and diversified operational strategy.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, comprehensive security headers, and no visible exposure of sensitive data. Privacy and cookie policies are well implemented with consent mechanisms, supporting GDPR compliance. However, the absence of a public vulnerability disclosure policy and security.txt file indicates an area for improvement in transparency and incident response readiness. No critical vulnerabilities or suspicious patterns were detected in the analysis. The site uses third-party scripts responsibly, but continuous monitoring is recommended to mitigate risks from external dependencies. Overall, the security maturity is high but could benefit from enhanced communication channels for security incidents.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy and security.txt file to improve transparency and encourage responsible reporting.
  2. Enhance visibility of incident response contacts, including dedicated security and abuse email addresses.
  3. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and dependencies to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
  4. Continue to monitor and improve privacy compliance, especially regarding data retention and user consent management.
  5. Invest in ongoing security awareness and culture initiatives to maintain high security standards.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Manchester United
Description
The Official Manchester United Website offers latest news, videos and fixtures information for our Men's, Women's and Academy teams
Key services
News and updates, Match fixtures and results, Membership subscriptions (MUTV), Ticket sales, Official merchandise store, Media content including videos, podcasts, and live streams
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
React, Next.js, JavaScript, CSS Modules, Google Tag Manager, DoubleClick for Publishers (Google Ads), Scoreplay CDN, Contentful CMS
Frameworks
Next.js
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of security headers
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure cookie consent mechanism

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google DoubleClick
Marketing tools
Qualtrics
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official website of Manchester United football club
  2. Comprehensive content including news, fixtures, memberships, and merchandise
  3. Strong use of modern web technologies and SEO best practices
  4. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  5. Good privacy and cookie policy implementation
  6. No direct contact emails or phone numbers publicly listed, contact via forms
  7. No visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure page
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern React and Next.js framework, leveraging Contentful CMS for content management. It uses advanced front-end techniques including CSS modules and asynchronous script loading to optimize performance. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility considerations. SEO is enhanced through structured data (JSON-LD), Open Graph tags, and comprehensive meta tags. Advertising and analytics are managed via Google Tag Manager and DoubleClick, with appropriate consent mechanisms in place. The technical infrastructure supports fast loading times and a smooth user experience. Opportunities exist to further enhance hosting transparency and implement advanced security monitoring tools.
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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