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Security report for spiegel.de

DER SPIEGEL · Media · Germany

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and Security headers.

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

DER SPIEGEL is a leading German media company providing comprehensive news coverage across politics, economy, sports, culture, science, and technology. It operates a large-scale digital platform with extensive content offerings including articles, videos, podcasts, and subscription services. The company maintains a strong market position in Germany with a consistent brand and high-quality content. Technically, the website employs modern frameworks such as Alpine.js and AMP Story Player, supported by a robust advertising and analytics infrastructure. However, the site exhibits some security weaknesses, notably an invalid SSL certificate and lack of advanced security headers, which could impact user trust and data protection. The company demonstrates good compliance with GDPR and cookie policies, ensuring user consent and privacy. Overall, DER SPIEGEL's digital presence is professional and trustworthy, but improvements in security posture are recommended to enhance protection and user confidence.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of spiegel.de. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
18/ 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

4 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

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

    • 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

  2. 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"

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

Keep watching spiegel.de

This scan found 17 issues across 5 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
100
Security headers
45
Email security
87
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
18
Average
73

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention spiegel.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
6,965
Employees
0
Customers
6,931
Third parties
34
Weak passwords
12%

41 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for spiegel.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

DER SPIEGEL holds a prominent position in the German media landscape, leveraging a multi-channel content strategy that includes online news, magazines, podcasts, and video content. Its business model combines subscription revenue from SPIEGEL+ and related services with advertising and affiliate marketing partnerships, including Amazon. The target audience primarily consists of German-speaking readers interested in in-depth news and analysis. The company benefits from a strong partnership ecosystem within the Spiegel Group, including manager magazin and 11FREUNDE. Growth indicators include extensive content diversification and digital engagement tools. The platform's integration with multiple ad networks and tracking services supports monetization but requires careful privacy management.

Security posture

The security posture of spiegel.de reveals a mixed maturity level. While the domain has a valid SPF record and a DMARC policy with reporting enabled, critical security features are lacking. The SSL certificate is currently invalid, and no TLS protocols or strong cipher suites are enabled, exposing users to potential risks. Additionally, DNSSEC and CAA records are not implemented, reducing domain security against certain attacks. The absence of HSTS and OCSP stapling further weakens HTTPS enforcement and certificate validation. No explicit security policy or incident response contacts are found on the site. Despite these gaps, the site shows good GDPR compliance and consent mechanisms, indicating a focus on privacy. Addressing the SSL and DNS security shortcomings is essential to improve overall security and trust.

Recommendations

  1. Immediately renew and properly configure the SSL/TLS certificate to ensure secure HTTPS connections.
  2. Implement DNSSEC and CAA records to enhance domain name system security and restrict certificate issuance.
  3. Enable HSTS with includeSubDomains and preload to enforce strict transport security across the domain.
  4. Publish a clear security policy and provide incident response contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ emails.
  5. Regularly audit and update security headers and cipher suites to align with best practices and mitigate vulnerabilities.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using modern JavaScript frameworks like Alpine.js and integrates advanced media players such as JWPlayer and Podlove for video and audio content. It uses Adobe Launch for tag management and includes multiple ad networks and tracking services, indicating a mature digital marketing setup. The site is hosted on an IP associated with spiegel.de and uses cloudns.net for DNS. Performance metrics show a slow load time (~12 seconds) and a large page size (~325 KB), suggesting optimization opportunities. Mobile optimization and accessibility are good, with responsive design and ARIA roles present. SEO is supported by comprehensive metadata, Open Graph tags, and JSON-LD structured data. Technical risks include the invalid SSL certificate and lack of DNSSEC, which could affect user trust and search rankings.
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. 65/100 −13Medium23 findingsView report
  2. 78/100Low24 findingsView report
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