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Security report for pcgamer.com

PC Gamer · Media · N/a

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

80/100

Risk levelLow

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

PC Gamer is a prominent media brand specializing in PC gaming news, reviews, hardware insights, and video content. The website targets PC gaming enthusiasts and technology consumers, providing comprehensive and up-to-date information on gaming franchises and hardware. The brand maintains a consistent and professional online presence with strong social media integration and structured data markup enhancing discoverability and trust. Technically, the website employs modern JavaScript frameworks, asynchronous loading of scripts, and web fonts to deliver a responsive and visually appealing user experience. The use of Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Marfeel SDK indicates a mature digital infrastructure focused on performance and analytics. Mobile optimization is good, and SEO practices are well implemented, although accessibility features are basic. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and uses modern web technologies but lacks explicit security headers and publicly available security policies or incident response contacts. The absence of WHOIS data limits domain trust assessment, but the brand's established reputation and content quality mitigate concerns. Privacy compliance is basic, with no clear cookie consent mechanisms or detailed privacy policies detected in the provided content. Overall, PC Gamer presents a high-quality, trustworthy media platform with room for improvement in privacy transparency and security best practices. Strategic enhancements in these areas would further solidify its market position and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
85/ 100 · Low
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

2 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.

    • 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

  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.

    • 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 pcgamer.com

This scan found 17 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
62
Security headers
65
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
85
Average
80

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

PC Gamer operates in the media sector with a focus on PC gaming content, serving a large audience of gamers and tech enthusiasts. Its business model revolves around content publishing supported by advertising and possibly affiliate marketing. The brand benefits from a strong market position as a recognized authority in PC gaming, leveraging partnerships with social media platforms and content distribution networks. The website's content strategy emphasizes exclusive reviews, guides, and video content, attracting a dedicated user base. Growth opportunities include expanding privacy compliance and security transparency to meet evolving regulatory requirements and user expectations.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to good security posture with enforced HTTPS and use of modern web technologies. However, the lack of visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and absence of a security.txt file or incident response contacts indicates gaps in security maturity. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the provided content. Privacy compliance is minimal, lacking explicit cookie consent mechanisms and detailed privacy policies. The WHOIS data absence raises minor concerns but is likely due to privacy protection. Enhancing security headers, publishing vulnerability disclosure policies, and improving privacy transparency would strengthen the security posture significantly.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear consent mechanisms to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Add security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  3. Publish a security.txt file and provide clear incident response contact information to facilitate vulnerability reporting and improve transparency.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate risks from vulnerable dependencies.
  5. Enhance accessibility features to improve usability for all users and comply with accessibility standards.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
PC Gamer
Description
PC Gamer is your source for exclusive reviews, demos, updates and news on all your favorite PC gaming franchises.
Key services
Gaming news, Game reviews, Hardware reviews, Guides, Video content
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Marfeel SDK, Vanilla JS framework, Web fonts (Open Sans, Roboto Condensed)
Frameworks
Vanilla JS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of modern fonts and async scripts

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, ScorecardResearch
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
Google DoubleClick
Tracking pixels
ScorecardResearch
Marketing tools
Marfeel SDK
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and no blocking detected
  2. No explicit privacy or cookie policy found in provided HTML snippet
  3. Strong social media presence and structured data markup
  4. Use of multiple external domains mainly for CDN, ads, and analytics
  5. No phone numbers or physical addresses explicitly found
  6. No security.txt or incident response contacts found
  7. WHOIS data unavailable or privacy protected
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern tech stack including Vanilla JavaScript, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Marfeel SDK for mobile optimization. Fonts are loaded asynchronously for performance, and the site is responsive with good mobile optimization. The CMS appears to be a proprietary or Future Publishing CMS, inferred from CDN domains. Performance is moderate with room for improvement in loading speed and accessibility. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data. Technical risks include reliance on multiple third-party scripts which require regular security reviews.
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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