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Security report for merdeka.com

Media · Indonesia

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Merdeka.com is a prominent Indonesian online news portal providing up-to-date news coverage across politics, economy, sports, technology, and entertainment sectors. The website targets a general Indonesian audience and operates primarily on an advertising-supported business model. The site demonstrates a consistent brand presence and good content quality, positioning itself as a major player in the Indonesian media landscape. Technically, the website employs modern web technologies including Google Fonts, Tailwind CSS, Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, and Google Tag Manager, indicating a mature digital infrastructure. The site is mobile-optimized and SEO-friendly, though accessibility features are basic. Security-wise, the website uses HTTPS and avoids exposing sensitive data, but lacks visible security headers and formal privacy or cookie policies, which are critical for compliance and user trust. The WHOIS data is unavailable or indicates the domain is not registered, which raises concerns about domain legitimacy despite the accessible and professional website content. Overall, the site is functional and professional but requires improvements in 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

7 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
    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • 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

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

Keep watching merdeka.com

This scan found 20 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

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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
57
Security headers
40
Email security
85
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
70
Average
70

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

Merdeka.com operates in the media sector, focusing on news dissemination to a broad Indonesian audience. Its revenue streams are primarily from advertising networks such as Google Ad Manager and Rubicon Project. The website integrates multiple tracking and marketing tools, including Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity, to optimize user engagement and ad performance. The absence of visible company registration or contact details limits direct business credibility verification. The site’s partnership with klimg.com for content delivery and advertising suggests a robust ecosystem. Growth indicators include extensive content coverage and social media presence. Strategic observations highlight the need for enhanced privacy and security policies to align with global compliance standards and improve user trust.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security posture with HTTPS enforced and no visible sensitive data leaks. However, the lack of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security reduces its defense against common web attacks. The use of multiple third-party scripts introduces potential vulnerabilities if not regularly audited. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is available, indicating limited transparency in security management. The missing privacy and cookie policies further expose compliance risks, especially under GDPR and similar regulations. Overall, while basic security practices are in place, significant improvements are needed to elevate the security maturity and compliance readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear user consent mechanisms.
  2. Add and enforce security headers including CSP, HSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options.
  3. Conduct regular security audits of third-party scripts and dependencies.
  4. Publish incident response and vulnerability disclosure policies to enhance transparency.
  5. Improve accessibility features and provide clear contact information to boost business credibility.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Description
merdeka, com, Berita, Politik, Ekonomi, Hukum, Kriminal, Olahraga, Sepak, Bola, Teknologi, Otomotif, Artis, di, Indonesia, dan, Dunia
Key services
news publishing, online media content, advertising
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Fonts, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity, Prebid.js, GPT Ads, Tailwind CSS
Platforms
desktop, mobile
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • no exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ad Manager, Rubicon Project
Tracking pixels
Microsoft Clarity, Facebook Pixel (via fb:app_id)
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a major Indonesian news portal with extensive content and advertising.
  2. No WHOIS data available, which is unusual for an active domain.
  3. No visible privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found in the HTML content.
  4. Uses multiple third-party analytics and advertising scripts.
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided HTML.
  6. No forms detected in the provided HTML snippet.
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  8. Website uses HTTPS and modern web fonts and CSS frameworks.
  9. No WAF or security challenge detected; content is fully accessible.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern tech stack with Tailwind CSS for styling, Google Fonts for typography, and integrates Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity for analytics. Advertising is managed via Google Ad Manager and Rubicon Project with Prebid.js for header bidding. The site is responsive and optimized for mobile devices. Performance is moderate, with asynchronous loading of scripts to improve speed. However, no CMS or hosting provider information is discernible from the HTML. The absence of structured data like JSON-LD limits rich search results potential. Technical debt appears low, but the lack of visible security headers and privacy compliance documents suggests areas for modernization and risk mitigation.
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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