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Security report for syracuse.com

syracuse · Media · United States

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

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Syracuse.com is a regional news website providing local news, sports, weather, and entertainment content focused on Syracuse, NY and the Central New York region. It operates under the Advance Local media network, which manages multiple regional news sites. The site offers subscriber-exclusive content, indicating a subscription-based revenue model alongside advertising. Technically, the website uses modern web technologies including React and Arc Fusion CMS, with extensive use of third-party ad and analytics services. The site is mobile-optimized and provides a good user experience with clear navigation and professional design. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and security headers in place, though explicit privacy and cookie policies are not detected in the provided content. WHOIS data is missing or unavailable, which reduces domain trustworthiness but the site branding and content quality suggest legitimacy. Overall, the site is a well-established local news platform with moderate to good technical and security maturity.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 100 · Medium
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. 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"

  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 syracuse.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
85
Security headers
30
Email security
80
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
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 syracuse.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
1,236
Employees
0
Customers
1,182
Third parties
54
Weak passwords
12%

26 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 syracuse.com.

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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

Syracuse.com holds a strong market position as a leading local news provider in Syracuse and Central New York. Its business model combines advertising revenue with subscription services, targeting local residents and news consumers. The site is part of the Advance Local network, which provides operational scale and shared resources across multiple regional news outlets. The presence of subscriber-exclusive content and integration with multiple ad networks and marketing tools indicates a mature digital media operation. The site leverages partnerships within the Advance Local ecosystem but does not expose direct contact or business registration details publicly. Growth indicators include active content updates and multimedia integration. The competitive advantage lies in localized content and a trusted regional brand.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a good security posture with enforced HTTPS, presence of security headers, and no visible exposure of sensitive data. However, the absence of explicit privacy and cookie policies, lack of visible incident response contacts, and missing WHOIS registration details represent compliance and trust gaps. The extensive use of third-party ad and tracking scripts increases the attack surface and privacy risk, requiring careful management. No critical vulnerabilities or malware indicators were detected in the content. The site would benefit from enhanced transparency around data protection and incident response to improve user trust and regulatory compliance.

Recommendations

  1. Publish clear and comprehensive privacy and cookie policies accessible from the homepage.
  2. Provide explicit security incident response contact information and vulnerability disclosure guidelines.
  3. Verify and publish domain WHOIS registration details to improve trust and legitimacy.
  4. Enhance accessibility features to meet higher standards for inclusive user experience.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and ad networks to minimize privacy risks and improve performance.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
syracuse
Description
Get the latest Syracuse, NY news, sports, and breaking updates. View daily weather and top stories from Syracuse and beyond on syracuse.com.
Key services
Local news reporting, Sports coverage, Weather updates, Entertainment news, Subscription services
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
React, Arc Fusion, Google Tag Manager, Amazon Ads, Rubicon Project, PubMatic, Sophi.io, Taboola, Admiral
Frameworks
Arc Fusion
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of security headers
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via GTM), Mather Analytics, Ahrefs Analytics, LinkedIn Insight, Scorecard Research
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
PubMatic, Amazon Ads, Rubicon Project, Google Ad Manager, AdRecover, Taboola
Tracking pixels
Mather Analytics, LinkedIn Insight, Scorecard Research, BlueConic, Crwdcntrl
Marketing tools
BlueConic, Admiral
Transparency
basic

Site quality

Design
good
User experience
good
Content relevance
good
Navigation
good
Professionalism
good
Trustworthiness
moderate

Key observations

  1. Website is a regional news portal for Syracuse, NY and Central New York.
  2. Content includes news articles, sports, weather, and entertainment.
  3. Subscriber exclusive content is present, indicating a subscription model.
  4. Multiple third-party ad and analytics scripts are used.
  5. No explicit privacy or cookie policy pages detected in the provided content.
  6. WHOIS data is missing or unavailable, which is unusual for a major news site domain.
  7. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the HTML content.
  8. No security or incident response contact information found.
  9. Website uses modern JavaScript frameworks and ad tech.
  10. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The site is built on a modern technology stack including React and Arc Fusion CMS, supported by a range of advertising and analytics platforms such as Google Tag Manager, Amazon Ads, PubMatic, Rubicon Project, and Taboola. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and SEO practices. The site uses multiple preconnects and async script loading to optimize resource fetching. However, the presence of numerous third-party scripts may impact load times and privacy. The lack of detected hosting provider information suggests use of a CDN or managed hosting. Technical debt appears low but could be improved by consolidating tracking scripts and enhancing accessibility compliance.
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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