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Security report for scripps.com

The E.W. Scripps Company · Media · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The E.W. Scripps Company is a large, established media corporation focused on delivering news, information, and entertainment across multiple platforms including local and national media networks and sports broadcasting. The company also operates notable brands such as the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Their website reflects a professional and consistent brand presence targeting general media consumers, investors, and job seekers. Technically, the site is built on WordPress and leverages common web technologies such as jQuery, Bootstrap, and various marketing and analytics tools. However, the site suffers from slow load times and a large page size, which may impact user experience. Security posture is weak due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate, lack of HTTPS, and missing security headers, exposing the site to potential risks. Privacy and cookie policies are present and include consent mechanisms, indicating some compliance with GDPR. Overall, the site is credible and trustworthy but requires urgent security improvements.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
43/ 100 · High
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 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 scripps.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.

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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
50
Security headers
15
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
43
Average
63

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

The company holds a strong market position in the media sector with diversified offerings and a clear business model centered on media content delivery and audience engagement. Their investor relations and career sections indicate a mature corporate structure. The presence of multiple social media channels and external brand sites like the Scripps National Spelling Bee shows a broad partnership ecosystem. The company targets a wide audience including consumers, investors, and potential employees. Growth indicators include active press releases and news updates. The website's technical infrastructure is standard for media companies but could benefit from modernization to improve performance and security.

Security posture

The current security maturity level is low due to critical issues such as the lack of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support, absence of security headers, and no HSTS or OCSP stapling. These gaps expose the company to risks including data interception and man-in-the-middle attacks. There is no evidence of a published security policy or incident response contact channels, which may hinder effective security incident management. Privacy compliance is partially addressed through visible privacy and cookie policies with consent mechanisms, but overall security best practices are not fully implemented. The company should prioritize securing its web infrastructure to protect user data and maintain trust.

Recommendations

  1. Immediately install and maintain a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Implement HTTP security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to mitigate common web vulnerabilities.
  3. Enable HSTS with includeSubDomains and preload options to enforce secure connections.
  4. Establish and publish a formal security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and readiness.
  5. Optimize website performance by reducing page size and improving load times to enhance user experience and SEO.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
The E.W. Scripps Company
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a WordPress CMS with common JavaScript libraries and plugins for UI components and analytics. Hosting is via Amazon AWS DNS infrastructure. The site is SEO optimized with Yoast SEO plugin and includes structured data in JSON-LD format. However, the site has a slow load time of approximately 11.9 seconds and a large page size of over 555 KB, indicating potential technical debt or unoptimized resources. The absence of HTTPS and modern TLS protocols is a critical technical risk. Accessibility features are basic, and mobile optimization is good. There is an opportunity to modernize the tech stack, improve security configurations, and optimize performance to reduce operational risks and improve user engagement.
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. 67/100Medium31 findingsView report
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