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Security report for medium.com

Medium · Media · N/a

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

Security score

79/100

Risk levelLow

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

Medium is a well-established online publishing platform founded in 1998, providing a space for individuals to read, write, and share stories and ideas. It operates a content platform business model with membership subscriptions and advertising revenue streams. The platform targets a general audience interested in insightful perspectives and knowledge sharing. Medium maintains a strong market position as a leading content platform with a large user base and consistent branding. Technically, Medium employs modern web technologies including React, GraphQL, and integrates third-party services such as Google Analytics, reCAPTCHA, and payment gateways like Braintree and PayPal. The website is optimized for performance, mobile responsiveness, and SEO, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure. Security-wise, Medium enforces HTTPS, uses bot protection, and secures payment processing, but lacks explicit public security policies or incident response contacts. The domain registration is consistent with a legitimate business, with no privacy protection and a long history supporting trustworthiness. Overall, Medium presents a professional, secure, and privacy-conscious platform with room for improvement in transparency around security policies and vulnerability disclosures.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of medium.com. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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 Content-Security-Policy header

      Controls resources the browser is allowed to load

      What to do: Implement a Content-Security-Policy appropriate for your application

      • ASVS V3.4.3
      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; form-action 'self'; base-uri 'self'; object-src 'none';…

  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 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 medium.com

This scan found 15 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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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
75
Security headers
70
Email security
80
DNS health
90
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
79

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

Medium's business intelligence reveals a strong foothold in the media industry as a content publishing platform. Its competitive advantage lies in its large community of writers and readers, diversified revenue through memberships and advertising, and partnerships with reputable payment processors. The platform's target customers include individual content creators and readers seeking quality content. Growth indicators include continuous technological updates and integration of advanced analytics and marketing tools. Medium's partnership ecosystem includes payment gateways and text-to-speech services, enhancing user experience and monetization. Strategic observations suggest focusing on expanding security transparency and incident response readiness to bolster user trust further.

Security posture

Medium demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of reCAPTCHA to mitigate bots, and secure payment integrations. The absence of DNSSEC is a minor gap in DNS security. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the analyzed content. However, the lack of a published security policy, incident response contacts, or a security.txt file indicates room for improvement in security transparency and readiness. Compliance with GDPR is evident through comprehensive privacy and cookie policies. Overall, Medium's security practices are robust but could benefit from enhanced public communication of security governance and vulnerability handling.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to strengthen DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security frameworks and practices.
  3. Create and maintain a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability disclosures.
  4. Provide clear incident response contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ emails.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and dependencies to mitigate vulnerabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Medium
Description
On Medium, anyone can share insightful perspectives, useful knowledge, and life wisdom with the world.
Key services
Content publishing, Membership subscriptions, Content discovery
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
React, GraphQL, Google reCAPTCHA, Branch.io, Datadog RUM, Braintree payment gateway, PayPal SDK, Cloudflare DNS
Frameworks
React
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of reCAPTCHA for bot protection
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of secure payment gateways
  • Client-side security scripts loaded asynchronously

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Datadog RUM
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ads
Tracking pixels
Datadog RUM
Marketing tools
Branch.io
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website uses modern web technologies and frameworks.
  2. Strong branding and consistent design.
  3. Comprehensive privacy and terms policies linked.
  4. Use of reputable third-party services for analytics, payments, and bot protection.
  5. No signs of phishing, malware, or suspicious content.
  6. No explicit contact phone numbers or physical addresses found.
  7. Email contact limited to press inquiries only.
  8. No explicit security policy or incident response contact found.
  9. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure page detected.
Technical notes

Notes

Medium's technical infrastructure is modern and robust, leveraging React for frontend rendering and GraphQL for efficient data querying. The use of asynchronous loading for analytics and security scripts optimizes performance. Hosting and DNS services are provided by reputable providers including Amazon Registrar and Cloudflare. The platform is mobile-optimized and accessible, with good SEO practices evident from meta tags and structured data. Payment processing is securely handled via Braintree and PayPal integrations. Technical risks are minimal but include the absence of DNSSEC and lack of explicit security governance documentation. Opportunities exist to enhance transparency and security posture through published policies and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms.
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. 64/100 −15Medium20 findingsView report
  2. 79/100 +1Low21 findingsView report
  3. 78/100Low19 findingsView report
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