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Security report for mcclatchy.com

McClatchy · Media · N/a

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

72/100

Risk levelMedium

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

McClatchy is a well-established media company specializing in local journalism and digital marketing services aimed at helping communities thrive. The company has a strong market presence with a domain registered since 1992, reflecting its long history in the media industry. The website provides clear navigation and professional content focused on journalism, community impact, and marketing solutions. The target audience is broad, encompassing general users interested in news and marketing services. Technically, the website uses a mix of older and modern web technologies including jQuery 1.7.1, Google Custom Search Engine, and Google Analytics. While the site is mobile-optimized and performs moderately well, there is room for modernization, particularly updating legacy libraries and improving accessibility features. SEO is basic but functional. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS and Google site verification, but lacks advanced security headers and DNSSEC. No explicit security or incident response policies are publicly available, and cookie consent mechanisms are absent, which may affect GDPR compliance. The WHOIS data is consistent and supports the legitimacy of the domain and business. Overall, the website is professional and trustworthy with good content quality and business credibility. However, improvements in security best practices, privacy compliance, and technical modernization are recommended to enhance the security posture and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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 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. 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. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

  4. 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 mcclatchy.com

This scan found 24 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
72
Security headers
65
Email security
70
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
72

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 mcclatchy.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
305
Employees
1
Customers
285
Third parties
19
Weak passwords
10%

Latest record dated 2026-05-15 · 17 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 mcclatchy.com.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –portal.mcclatchy.com2026-05-15

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Open in Breach(opens in a new tab)Monitor on Breach(opens in a new tab)

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

McClatchy operates in the media sector with a focus on local journalism and digital marketing. Its business model revolves around content publishing and marketing services targeting local communities and marketers. The company leverages partnerships for employee services and career management. The domain age and WHOIS data confirm a mature market position. The company maintains active social media channels to engage audiences and promote its services. Revenue streams likely include subscriptions, advertising, and marketing services. Growth indicators include digital marketing expansion and community engagement initiatives. The partnership ecosystem includes employee portals and recruitment platforms, enhancing operational efficiency.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enabled and no visible sensitive data exposure. However, the absence of DNSSEC, security headers, and explicit security policies indicates gaps in defense-in-depth strategies. The use of an outdated jQuery version could expose the site to known vulnerabilities. Lack of cookie consent and privacy compliance mechanisms may pose regulatory risks under GDPR. Incident response readiness is not publicly documented, limiting transparency. Overall, the security posture is adequate but requires enhancements to meet modern standards and regulatory requirements.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement comprehensive security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  3. Upgrade jQuery and other JavaScript libraries to current supported versions to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  4. Add a cookie consent banner and update privacy policy to explicitly address GDPR compliance.
  5. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and trust.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
McClatchy
Description
McClatchy is a media company focused on local journalism, helping people and communities thrive through news and digital marketing services.
Key services
Local journalism, Digital marketing, Community engagement
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 1.7.1, Google Custom Search Engine, Google Analytics, prettyPhoto jQuery plugin, Font fonts.net, Google Fonts (Lora)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google site verification
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Marketing tools
Google Custom Search Engine
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is professionally presented with clear navigation and consistent branding.
  3. No explicit privacy or cookie consent mechanisms visible, which may impact GDPR compliance.
  4. WHOIS data supports legitimacy and long-standing presence in the media industry.
  5. Use of older jQuery version may pose minor security risks.
  6. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on the homepage or footer.
  7. Social media presence is active on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a combination of legacy and modern web technologies, including jQuery 1.7.1, Google Custom Search Engine, and Google Analytics. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design elements and uses external font services. Performance is moderate with no major errors detected. SEO is basic with meta tags present but no advanced structured data or Open Graph tags found. Accessibility features are minimal but functional. Hosting provider and CMS are not explicitly identified. Technical debt is indicated by outdated libraries and lack of advanced security headers. Modernization opportunities include updating libraries, enhancing SEO with structured data, and improving accessibility compliance.
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. 76/100Low30 findingsView report
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