A recent study analyzing 4,700 prominent websites has uncovered a significant security concern: 64% of third-party applications are accessing sensitive data without a valid business justification. This marks a notable increase from 51% in 2024, highlighting a growing vulnerability in web security.
Understanding Web Exposure
The term ‘Web Exposure Management’ refers to the security risks associated with third-party applications such as analytics tools, marketing pixels, content delivery networks (CDNs), and payment processors. Each integration with these third-party services expands an organization’s attack surface. A single compromised vendor can lead to extensive data breaches by injecting malicious code to harvest credentials or skim payments.
This escalating risk is often due to a governance gap where marketing or digital teams implement applications without adequate IT oversight. This lack of coordination results in chronic misconfigurations, granting applications access to sensitive data fields they don’t functionally require.
Methodology of the Study
Over a 12-month period ending in November 2025, Reflectiz conducted an analysis of 4,700 leading websites using its proprietary Exposure Rating system. This system evaluates numerous data points from millions of websites, considering each risk factor in context to assign an overall risk grade from A to F. The findings were further supported by a survey of over 120 security leaders in the healthcare, finance, and retail sectors.
The Unjustified Access Crisis
The report identifies a growing issue termed unjustified access, where third-party tools are granted access to sensitive data without a clear business need. Access is deemed unjustified when a third-party script exhibits any of the following behaviors:
– Irrelevant Function: Accessing data unnecessary for its task (e.g., a chatbot accessing payment fields).
– Zero-ROI Presence: Remaining active on high-risk pages despite 90+ days of zero data transmission.
– Shadow Deployment: Implementation via Tag Managers without security oversight or least privilege scoping.
– Over-Permissioning: Utilizing Full DOM Access to scrape entire pages rather than restricted elements.
This trend is particularly prevalent in the Entertainment and Online Retail sectors, where marketing priorities often overshadow security considerations.
Specific Offenders Identified
The study highlights specific tools contributing to this exposure:
– Google Tag Manager: Responsible for 8% of all unjustified sensitive data access.
– Shopify: Accounts for 5% of unjustified access.
– Facebook Pixel: In 4% of analyzed deployments, the pixel was found to be over-permissioned, capturing sensitive input fields it did not require for functional tracking.
This governance gap is not merely theoretical. A recent survey of over 120 security decision-makers from healthcare, finance, and retail sectors revealed that 24% of organizations rely solely on general security tools like Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), leaving them vulnerable to the specific third-party risks identified in this research. Another 34% are still evaluating dedicated solutions, meaning 58% of organizations lack proper defenses despite recognizing the threat.
Critical Infrastructure Under Siege
The study also reveals alarming trends in critical infrastructure sectors:
– Government Sector: Malicious activity surged from 2% to 12.9%.
– Education Sector: Signs of compromised sites quadrupled to 14.3%, indicating that 1 in 7 education sites show active compromise.
– Insurance Sector: In contrast, this sector reduced malicious activity by 60%, dropping to just 1.3%.
Budget constraints are a significant factor in these vulnerabilities. Public institutions, often operating with limited resources, are losing the battle against supply chain attacks. Private sectors with better governance budgets are stabilizing their environments more effectively.
Survey respondents confirmed this: 34% cited budget constraints as their primary obstacle, while 31% pointed to a lack of manpower—a combination that hits public institutions particularly hard.
The Awareness-Action Gap
The survey findings expose a critical disconnect within organizations:
– 81% of security leaders consider web attacks a top priority.
– Only 39% have deployed solutions to address these threats.
– 61% are still evaluating or using inadequate tools, despite the surge in unjustified access from 51% to 64%.
The top obstacles cited include budget constraints (34%), regulatory challenges (32%), and staffing shortages (31%). This awareness without corresponding action creates vulnerabilities at scale, explaining the 25% year-over-year increase in unjustified access.
The Marketing Department Factor
A significant driver of this risk is the Marketing Footprint. The research found that Marketing and Digital departments now account for 43% of all third-party risk exposure, compared to just 19% created by IT.
The report found that 47% of apps running in payment frames lack business justification. Marketing teams frequently deploy conversion tools into these sensitive environments without realizing the implications.
Security teams recognize this threat: in the practitioner survey, 20% of respondents ranked supply chain attacks and third-party script vulnerabilities among their top three concerns. Yet, the organizational structure that would prevent these risks—unified oversight of third-party deployments—remains absent in most organizations.
Potential Impact of a Pixel Breach
With 53.2% ubiquity, the Facebook Pixel represents a systemic single point of failure. The risk lies not in the tool itself but in unmanaged permissions: Full DOM Access and Automatic Advanced Matching can transform marketing pixels into unintentional data scrapers.
A compromise of this nature could be five times larger than the 2024 Polyfill.io attack, exposing data across half the major web simultaneously. Polyfill affected 100,000 sites over weeks; Facebook Pixel’s 53.2% ubiquity means over 2.5 million sites could be compromised instantly.
Technical Indicators of Compromise
For the first time, this research identifies technical signals that predict compromised sites:
– Recently Registered Domains: Domains registered within the last six months appear 3.8 times more often on compromised sites.
– External Connections: Compromised sites connect to 2.7 times more external domains (100 vs. 36).
– Mixed Content: 63% of compromised sites mix HTTPS/HTTP protocols.
Benchmarks for Security Leaders
Among the 4,700 analyzed sites, 429 demonstrated strong security outcomes, proving that functionality and security can coexist.
For instance, ticketweb.uk was the only site meeting all eight security benchmarks, earning a Grade A+. Other notable examples include GitHub, PayPal, and Yale University, each meeting seven benchmarks and achieving a Grade A.
Three Quick Wins to Prioritize
1. Audit Trackers:
– Inventory every pixel and tracker.
– Identify the owner and business justification.
– Remove tools that can’t justify data access.
Priority fixes:
– Facebook Pixel: Disable ‘Automatic Advanced Matching’ on Personally Identifiable Information (PII) pages.
– Google Tag Manager: Verify no payment page access.
– Shopify: Review app permissions.
2. Implement Automated Monitoring:
– Deploy runtime monitoring for:
– Sensitive field access detection (cards, Social Security Numbers, credentials).
– Real-time alerts for unauthorized collection.
– Content Security Policy (CSP) violation tracking.
3. Address the Marketing-IT Divide:
– Conduct a joint review between the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to:
– Assess marketing tools in payment frames.
– Scope Facebook Pixel usage (use Allow/Exclusion Lists).
– Evaluate tracker Return on Investment (ROI) versus security risk.
Conclusion
The increasing trend of third-party applications accessing sensitive data without justification underscores the need for organizations to reassess their web security strategies. By implementing stringent governance, conducting regular audits, and fostering collaboration between departments, businesses can mitigate these risks and protect their critical data assets.
