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Security report for stepan.com

Stepan Company · Manufacturing · United States

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

Security score

54/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Stepan Company operates as a global specialty and intermediate chemical supplier, providing chemical ingredients and formulations tailored to consumer and industrial markets. The company emphasizes innovation, sustainability, and extensive R&D capabilities, positioning itself as a large, reputable player in the manufacturing sector. Their website reflects a professional and comprehensive digital presence with clear navigation and rich content targeting B2B customers seeking chemical solutions. Technically, the website leverages Adobe Experience Manager as its CMS, integrates Salesforce platforms, and uses modern marketing and analytics tools such as Pardot, Adobe DTM, and Google Tag Manager. The site is hosted on Microsoft Azure DNS infrastructure and employs standard security headers and content security policies. However, a critical security gap exists due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support, which significantly impacts the site's security posture. From a security perspective, while some best practices like CSP and secure cookies are implemented, the lack of HTTPS and modern TLS protocols exposes the site to risks and undermines user trust. Privacy compliance is well addressed with clear privacy and cookie policies and consent mechanisms. Contact information is primarily available via web forms, with no direct emails or phone numbers published. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professionally managed but requires urgent remediation of its SSL/TLS configuration to meet modern security standards and improve user confidence.

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 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

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

Keep watching stepan.com

This scan found 15 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
0
Security headers
55
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
33
Average
54

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

Stepan Company holds a strong market position as a global specialty chemical supplier with a diversified portfolio of over 650 products and 390 formulations serving 20 markets worldwide. Their business model focuses on B2B chemical supply and formulation services, supported by a large R&D team and sustainability initiatives. The company maintains active engagement with industry organizations and provides investor relations and career portals, indicating a mature and transparent corporate structure. Their digital ecosystem integrates Salesforce and Adobe platforms, supporting marketing automation and customer engagement. Growth indicators include recent production expansions and active participation in industry events. The company targets industrial clients requiring specialty chemicals and formulations, emphasizing innovation and sustainability as competitive advantages. Their partnership ecosystem includes Salesforce and Adobe, with no suspicious or unrelated domains detected. The business intelligence suggests a stable, large enterprise with a focus on technical excellence and market leadership.

Security posture

The current security posture of the website is moderate to poor due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS support, which is a critical vulnerability. While security headers such as X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and a comprehensive Content Security Policy are in place, the lack of encrypted transport undermines these protections. No evidence of incident response or security policy documentation is found on the site. The site uses secure cookies with SameSite and Secure flags, but session resumption and OCSP stapling are not enabled. No known vulnerabilities or malware indicators are detected in the provided data. Privacy compliance is strong, with GDPR considerations addressed via cookie consent and privacy policies. This security gap poses risks of data interception and user trust erosion. Immediate SSL/TLS implementation is recommended to elevate the security posture to industry standards.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable deprecated protocols.
  3. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload directives.
  4. Enable OCSP stapling to improve certificate revocation checking performance and security.
  5. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to enhance transparency and trust.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Adobe Experience Manager CMS, integrating Salesforce platforms for customer engagement and marketing automation. It uses jQuery 3.7.0 and asynchronous loading of scripts for performance optimization. Tag management is handled via Adobe Dynamic Tag Manager and Google Tag Manager. Hosting is supported by Microsoft Azure DNS infrastructure. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and includes accessibility features, though these could be improved further. Performance metrics were not available, but the use of modern asynchronous scripts and CDNs suggests moderate to good performance. SEO is supported by proper meta tags, canonical links, and structured data (JSON-LD). Technical debt is minimal, but the lack of SSL/TLS is a significant risk factor that should be addressed promptly.
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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