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Security report for standardandpoors.com

S&P Global Ratings · Finance · United States

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

56/100

Risk levelMedium

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

S&P Global Ratings operates as a leading global credit rating agency providing essential financial intelligence embedded into the workflows of customers worldwide. The website reflects a mature enterprise with a comprehensive offering of credit ratings, research, and analytics services targeted at investors, issuers, and intermediaries. The digital infrastructure leverages modern JavaScript libraries, marketing tools, and analytics platforms, hosted primarily on Amazon AWS with content delivery via Akamai. While the site is professionally designed with excellent content quality and user experience, it lacks a valid SSL certificate and proper HTTPS configuration, which significantly impacts its security posture. Security headers are present, but the absence of TLS protocols and certificate transparency compliance are critical gaps. Privacy policies and cookie notices are well implemented, indicating good privacy compliance. Overall, the website demonstrates high business credibility but requires urgent security improvements to align with best practices and protect user data.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
33/ 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

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

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • 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.

    • 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

  3. 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 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';…

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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
0
Security headers
70
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
33
Average
56

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 maintains a strong market position as a trusted provider of credit ratings and financial insights, supported by a global brand and multiple subsidiaries and partners. The business model focuses on delivering subscription-based and service-oriented financial intelligence products, including Ratings360® and Climate Transition Assessments. The website targets financial professionals and institutional clients, offering multilingual support and extensive research content. The partnership ecosystem includes regional credit rating agencies and specialized platforms. The digital presence is optimized for enterprise-scale operations with integrated marketing and analytics tools, reflecting a sophisticated approach to customer engagement and data-driven insights.

Security posture

The current security maturity level is low due to the lack of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols, exposing the site to potential interception and man-in-the-middle attacks. Security headers such as HSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options are correctly configured, providing some defense-in-depth. No vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed or POODLE were detected, and no sensitive data exposure was found in the HTML content. However, the absence of DNSSEC, CAA records, and OCSP stapling indicates incomplete domain and certificate security. No explicit incident response or security policy pages were found, suggesting limited transparency in security governance. Compliance with GDPR is supported by privacy and cookie policies, but incident response readiness and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are lacking.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and maintain a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site immediately.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable deprecated protocols to secure communications.
  3. Configure DNSSEC and CAA records to enhance domain security and prevent certificate mis-issuance.
  4. Publish explicit security and incident response policies, including contact channels for vulnerability reporting.
  5. Regularly audit and update security headers and implement OCSP stapling and certificate transparency compliance.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern JavaScript stack including jQuery 3.5.1 and integrates third-party marketing and analytics tools such as Google Tag Manager, Adobe Launch, Marketo, and New Relic Browser Agent. Hosting is on Amazon AWS with content delivery via Akamai CDN, ensuring global reach and performance. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and accessibility features at a basic level. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags and structured navigation. However, performance metrics were not available, and the lack of SSL/TLS is a critical technical risk. The CMS appears custom or proprietary with no common CMS detected. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports enterprise-grade operations but requires security modernization.
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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