Skip to main content

Security report for watoday.com.au

Seven West Media Limited · Media · Australia

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view.

Security score

86/100

Risk levelLow

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

WAtoday is a well-established regional news website focused on delivering breaking news and local content for Perth and Western Australia. Owned by Seven West Media Limited, it operates as a significant media outlet in the region, leveraging advertising and subscription models. The website demonstrates a professional design and consistent branding, targeting a general audience interested in regional news. Technically, the site employs a modern technology stack including Google Tag Manager, Chartbeat, Amazon Ads, and Snowplow Analytics, hosted on AWS Cloudfront CDN, ensuring moderate performance and good mobile optimization. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforcement and appropriate security headers, though public security policies and incident response information are not readily available. Privacy compliance is limited due to the absence of visible privacy and cookie policies or consent mechanisms in the analyzed content. Overall, the website is trustworthy and credible but would benefit from enhanced transparency in privacy and security policies.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
70/ 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

2 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.

    • 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 watoday.com.au

This scan found 13 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.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. See sample alerts.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
90
Security headers
85
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
70
Average
86

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 watoday.com.au, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
75
Employees
0
Customers
75
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
21%

2 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 watoday.com.au.

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

The website holds a strong market position as a regional news leader in Western Australia, supported by its parent company Seven West Media Limited, a large media conglomerate. Its business model relies on advertising revenue and subscription services, facilitated by partners like Piano for payment processing. The target audience is broad, encompassing general news consumers in the region. The site integrates multiple third-party ad networks and analytics platforms, indicating a mature digital marketing ecosystem. Growth potential is supported by its established brand and regional focus, though competition in digital news media remains intense. Strategic partnerships and technology investments reflect a commitment to maintaining market relevance and monetization efficiency.

Security posture

WAtoday exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and multiple security headers implemented, reducing common web vulnerabilities. The use of reputable third-party analytics and ad services is balanced with no detected vulnerable libraries or exposed sensitive data in the HTML. However, the lack of publicly accessible security policies, incident response contacts, or vulnerability disclosure mechanisms represents a compliance gap and potential risk in incident management transparency. Privacy compliance is weak, with no clear GDPR or cookie consent mechanisms visible, which could expose the organization to regulatory scrutiny. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be improved by publishing formal policies and enhancing privacy controls.

Recommendations

  1. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with explicit GDPR compliance and consent mechanisms.
  2. Establish and publicly disclose a security policy and incident response plan including contact channels for security issues.
  3. Implement a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  4. Enhance website accessibility features to improve compliance and user experience.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and dependencies to ensure no vulnerabilities are introduced.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Seven West Media Limited
Description
WAtoday is a news website providing breaking news, local news, and information focused on Perth and Western Australia.
Key services
news reporting, local news coverage, advertising platform
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, Google Tag Manager, Chartbeat, Amazon A9 Ads, Rubicon Project, Tinypass (Piano), Snowplow Analytics, Bing UET
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of security headers
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of modern analytics and ad scripts

Analytics and tracking

Services
Chartbeat, Snowplow Analytics, Google Analytics (via GTM), Bing UET, Nielsen
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Ad networks
Amazon A9, Rubicon Project, Google AdSense/DoubleClick, Bing Ads
Tracking pixels
Chartbeat, Snowplow, Nielsen
Marketing tools
Tinypass (Piano)
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional news media outlet for Western Australia.
  2. Uses multiple third-party ad and analytics services.
  3. Lacks visible privacy, cookie, and terms of service pages in the provided HTML snapshot.
  4. No explicit security or incident response policies found publicly.
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the HTML content.
  6. Strong HTTPS and security headers implemented.
  7. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern JavaScript-heavy front end with integrations for analytics (Chartbeat, Snowplow, Google Analytics), advertising (Amazon A9, Rubicon Project, Google Ads), and subscription management (Piano). Hosting is via AWS Cloudfront CDN, supporting global content delivery and performance optimization. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and uses DNS prefetch and preconnect hints to improve load times. However, no explicit CMS was detected, suggesting a custom or proprietary solution. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and structured data, though accessibility features are basic. Performance is moderate, with room for improvement in load speed and accessibility compliance. Technical debt appears low but ongoing modernization and security audits are recommended.
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

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with watoday.com.au. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review watoday.com.au.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.