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Security report for msd.com

Merck & Co., Inc. · Healthcare · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

55/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Merck & Co., Inc., operating as MSD outside the US and Canada, is a leading global research-intensive biopharmaceutical company focused on developing medicines and vaccines to tackle major health threats. The website reflects a mature enterprise with a comprehensive digital presence targeting patients, healthcare professionals, investors, and researchers. The content is rich, professionally designed, and well-structured, supporting multiple regions and languages. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern SEO and accessibility features, but performance is impacted by missing SSL/TLS configuration, which is a critical security gap. Security headers are well implemented, but the lack of HTTPS and TLS protocols severely limits the security posture. Privacy and cookie policies are present with consent mechanisms, indicating good privacy compliance. Contact information is primarily via contact forms, with no direct emails or phone numbers publicly listed. Overall, the site demonstrates strong business credibility but requires urgent security improvements to protect user data and trust.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
15/ 100 · Critical
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. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • High

      No Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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

    • High

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

  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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

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

Keep watching msd.com

This scan found 13 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
0
Security headers
80
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
15
Average
55

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

MSD holds a premier market position in the healthcare sector, leveraging a research-driven business model with key services including pharmaceutical research, vaccine development, clinical trials, and sustainability initiatives. The company operates globally with a large enterprise footprint and maintains a broad partnership ecosystem, including subsidiaries like MSD Animal Health. The website supports this global presence with localized domains and extensive content. The business model focuses on innovation and public health impact, supported by strong branding and trust signals such as privacy compliance and social media engagement. Growth indicators include active clinical trials and sustainability programs. The company’s digital ecosystem integrates marketing and analytics tools to support outreach and engagement.

Security posture

The current security posture is moderate to poor due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols, which exposes the site to risks such as data interception and man-in-the-middle attacks. Security headers like Content Security Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection are properly configured, which mitigates some risks. However, the lack of HTTPS and HSTS reduces overall security effectiveness. No public incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies were found, indicating potential gaps in transparency and readiness. The site uses consent mechanisms for cookies, supporting privacy compliance. Immediate remediation of SSL/TLS issues is critical to elevate security maturity and protect user data.

Recommendations

  1. Install and maintain a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Enable TLS 1.2 or higher protocols and disable deprecated protocols to secure communications.
  3. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload directives.
  4. Publish a clear vulnerability disclosure policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and security posture.
  5. Enhance performance optimization to improve load times and user experience, including leveraging session resumption and caching.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by WordPress CMS with Yoast SEO plugin for search optimization and Google Tag Manager for analytics. The site uses nginx as the web server and employs modern front-end technologies including lazy loading for images and responsive design for mobile optimization. DNS records indicate a robust multi-NS setup with MX records pointing to Microsoft Outlook protection services. However, the SSL configuration is invalid with no TLS protocols enabled, severely impacting secure access. Performance metrics are missing or zero, suggesting potential measurement gaps or slow loading. Accessibility features are implemented, including ARIA roles and skip links. The site integrates multiple external domains for regional presence and partner services, maintaining a consistent brand experience globally.
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. 77/100Low28 findingsView report
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