New Research Exposes Critical Gap: 64% of Third-Party Applications Access Sensitive Data Without Authorization

Boston, MA, USA, January 21st, 2026, CyberNewsWire

Reflectiz today announced the release of its 2026 State of Web Exposure Research, revealing a sharp escalation in client‑side risk across global websites, driven primarily by third‑party applications, marketing tools, and unmanaged digital integrations.
According to the new analysis of 4,700 leading websites, 64% of third‑party applications now access sensitive data without legitimate business justification, up from 51% last year — a 25% year‑over‑year spike highlighting a widening governance gap.
The report also exposes a dramatic surge in malicious web activity across critical public‑sector infrastructure. Government websites saw malicious activity rise from 2% to 12.9%, while 1 in 7 Education websites now show active compromise, quadrupling year‑over‑year. Budget constraints and limited manpower were cited as primary obstacles by public‑sector security leaders.
The research identifies several widely used third‑party tools as top drivers of unjustified sensitive‑data exposure, including Google Tag Manager (8%), Shopify (5%), and Facebook Pixel (4%), which were frequently found to be over‑permissioned or deployed without adequate scoping.
“Organizations are granting sensitive‑data access by default rather than exception — and attackers are exploiting that gap,” said VP of Product at Reflectiz, Simon Arazi. “This year’s data shows that marketing teams continue to introduce the majority of third‑party risk, while IT lacks visibility into what’s actually running on the website.”
Key findings include:

64% of apps accessing sensitive data have no valid justification.
47% of applications running in payment frames (checkout environments) are unjustified.
Compromised sites connect to 2.7× more external domains, load 2× more trackers, and use recently registered domains 3.8× more often than clean sites.
Marketing and Digital departments account for 43% of all third‑party risk

The report also introduces updated Security Leadership Benchmarks, highlighting the very small group of organizations meeting all eight criteria. Only one website — ticketweb.uk — achieved a perfect score across the framework.
The 2026 report includes:

Sector‑by‑sector breakdowns of web exposure risk
Full list of high‑risk third‑party applications
Year‑over‑year industry trends
Technical indicators of compromise
Best‑practice controls for security and digital teams

The complete 43‑page analysis is available for download:
https://www.reflectiz.com/learning-hub/web-exposure-2026-research/
About Reflectiz
Reflectiz empowers organizations to secure their websites and digital assets against modern web threats. Its award-winning, agentless platform provides continuous visibility into all client-side activity, detecting and prioritizing security, privacy and compliance risks. Reflectiz is trusted by global enterprises across financial services, e-commerce, and healthcare to protect their data, users, and brand reputation.
Contact
VP MarketingDaniel SharabiReflectiz[email protected]

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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