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Security report for nzherald.co.nz

NZ Herald · Media · New Zealand

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

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

NZ Herald is a leading New Zealand news media company providing comprehensive news coverage, opinion, and multimedia content to a broad audience. The website serves as a primary digital platform for news dissemination in New Zealand, offering diverse content including politics, business, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle. It operates under the parent company NZME and offers subscription-based premium content services. Technically, the website employs modern web technologies such as React, Tailwind CSS, and integrates multiple third-party analytics and advertising tools, hosted likely on Microsoft Azure infrastructure. The site demonstrates good performance and mobile optimization with a professional design and clear navigation. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and use of security best practices, though explicit security headers and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are not clearly identified. Privacy and cookie policies are not explicitly found in the provided content, indicating an area for improvement in compliance. Overall, the website is trustworthy, safe for general audiences, and maintains a high level of business credibility.

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

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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

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

  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

      SSL Certificate Expires Soon

      SSL certificate expires in 28 days

      What to do: Renew SSL certificate before expiration

      • NIS2 21(2)(h)
      • IR 2024/2690 9.2(c): Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 9.2(c): Cryptography
      • NIST SC-17: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-17: Public Key Infrastructure Certificates

  4. DNS health

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

    • High

      Weak SPF Policy

      SPF record has permissive policy allowing any server to send email

      What to do: Use -all or ~all qualifier for better email security

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

Keep watching nzherald.co.nz

This scan found 21 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

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
45
Email security
60
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
70
Average
69

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

NZ Herald holds a strong market position as New Zealand's premier news outlet with a large audience base. Its business model combines free news content with premium subscription offerings, generating revenue through advertising and subscriptions. The company leverages partnerships with related domains for specialized content and services, enhancing its ecosystem. The target audience spans general New Zealand residents and global readers interested in New Zealand affairs. The brand is consistent and well-established, supported by extensive content categories and multimedia offerings. Growth indicators include digital subscriptions and diversified content verticals. Strategic partnerships with property, automotive, and restaurant platforms indicate a broad commercial strategy beyond traditional news media.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS and integration of security-related scripts. However, the absence of explicit security headers in the analyzed content suggests potential gaps in defense-in-depth. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. The lack of a visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy may limit coordinated vulnerability reporting. Privacy compliance appears basic, with no clear privacy or cookie policy links found, which could pose regulatory risks. Incident response contact information is not evident, indicating an opportunity to enhance transparency and readiness. Overall, the security posture is good but could benefit from formalized policies and enhanced header configurations.

Recommendations

  1. Publish and clearly link comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to improve compliance and user trust.
  2. Implement and expose a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability disclosure and improve security transparency.
  3. Audit and enforce security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  4. Enhance accessibility features to meet recognized standards and improve user experience for all audiences.
  5. Provide clear contact information for security incidents and data protection officer to strengthen incident response capabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
NZ Herald
Description
Get the latest breaking news, analysis and opinion from NZ and around the world, including politics, business, sport, entertainment, travel and more.
Key services
News reporting, Opinion and analysis, Video content, Podcasts, Subscription services (Herald Premium, Viva Premium, The Listener, BusinessDesk)
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Fonts, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, Outbrain, LinkedIn Insight Tag, AB Tasty, React.js, Tailwind CSS
Frameworks
React
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of security and analytics scripts asynchronously
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager, IMR Worldwide, LinkedIn Insight, Facebook Analytics
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Outbrain, Amplify
Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, IMR Worldwide
Marketing tools
AB Tasty
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a major New Zealand news portal with extensive content and navigation.
  2. No WHOIS data available due to .nz registry restrictions.
  3. No privacy or cookie policy links explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet.
  4. Multiple third-party analytics and advertising scripts are used.
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet.
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  7. Website uses HTTPS and modern web technologies.
  8. Content is safe and suitable for general audiences.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern technology stack including React.js for frontend rendering and Tailwind CSS for styling, indicating a contemporary development approach. Hosting appears to be on Microsoft Azure infrastructure, providing scalability and reliability. Integration with multiple third-party analytics and advertising platforms is extensive, supporting monetization and user engagement tracking. Performance is moderate with asynchronous loading of scripts to optimize page load times. The CMS is a proprietary system (Fusion) tailored for NZME's content needs. Opportunities exist to improve technical SEO and accessibility compliance further. No critical technical debt or risks were identified in the provided content.
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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