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Security report for atkinsonsaulfairholm.co.uk

Atkinson Saul Fairholm Ltd · Finance · United Kingdom

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS and GDPR outside view.

Security score

78/100

Risk levelLow

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

Atkinson Saul Fairholm Ltd is a small, established Chartered Accountants firm based in Lincoln, UK, providing a range of accounting, taxation, and business advisory services primarily to family businesses and individuals in the region. The firm emphasizes a personal approach and cost-effective solutions, with over twenty years of operation. Their key services include tax planning, business structures, compliance, bookkeeping, payroll, and advisory services. The website is professionally designed, mobile-optimized, and provides clear navigation and contact information, supporting a positive user experience. Technically, the website uses modern frameworks such as Bootstrap and jQuery, with a responsive design and structured data markup for SEO and business information. While performance is moderate, the site lacks visible security headers and explicit cookie consent mechanisms, which are areas for improvement. The WHOIS data is unavailable due to a domain naming rules violation error, which is unusual and impacts domain trustworthiness from a registration perspective. Security posture is moderate with HTTPS implied but missing explicit security headers and incident response information. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. Privacy compliance is basic with a privacy policy and cookie policy present but lacking active consent mechanisms. Overall, the website is trustworthy and professional but would benefit from enhanced security and privacy features to improve compliance and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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. 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.

    • High

      Weak Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

  2. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • 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 atkinsonsaulfairholm.co.uk

This scan found 19 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

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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
72
Security headers
70
Email security
85
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
78

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

The firm operates in the finance sector as a small-sized professional services business focused on accounting and tax advisory for local clients in Lincolnshire. Their market position is that of a trusted, long-standing local firm offering personalized services that larger firms may not provide. The business model centers on fee-for-service accounting and consultancy, targeting small to medium family businesses and individual taxpayers. The website supports growth through a newsletter subscription and resource center, indicating engagement efforts. The lack of social media presence and limited digital marketing tools suggests a traditional approach to client acquisition. The partnership with YourFirmOnline for website hosting and management indicates a reliance on specialized service providers. The absence of detailed financial or certification disclosures limits deeper business intelligence insights.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS usage but lacks visible security headers such as Content Security Policy, HSTS, or X-Frame-Options, which are recommended best practices. No incident response or security policy information is publicly available, and no dedicated security contact channels were found. The forms present are minimal and appear secure with no exposed sensitive data. The absence of cookie consent mechanisms and limited privacy compliance features indicate gaps in GDPR adherence. No known vulnerabilities or malicious indicators were detected. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a small professional services website but requires enhancements to meet higher compliance and security standards.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including CSP, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Add a visible cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply with GDPR and improve user privacy transparency.
  3. Publish a clear security policy and incident response plan on the website, including dedicated contact channels for security issues.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and frameworks to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
  5. Investigate and resolve the domain WHOIS registration anomaly to improve domain trust and legitimacy perception.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Atkinson Saul Fairholm Ltd
Registration number
04439173
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Atkinson Saul Fairholm Ltd
Description
Atkinson Saul Fairholm are accountants in the centre of Lincoln with clients across the region. They provide friendly and cost effective accounting and tax advice, delivering timely and appropriate advice to family businesses covering tax planning, business structures, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, dividend planning, accounts preparation, tax returns, bookkeeping, payroll and VAT matters. They also advise on shareholder disputes and matrimonial separations.
Key services
Accounting Services, Business start-up, Compliance services, Consultancy services, Investments & Pensions, Support services, Taxation
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.6.0, Bootstrap 3.0, ClientZone Framework 3.0
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • Use of HTTPS (implied by canonical URL https://)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No vulnerable libraries detected

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no WAF or blocking detected.
  2. Content is professionally presented and relevant to accounting and tax advisory services.
  3. Contact information is clearly provided including phone, email, and physical address.
  4. No social media links are active or present in the footer or header.
  5. No explicit privacy or cookie consent banners visible despite cookie policy mention.
  6. Use of modern JavaScript libraries and responsive design frameworks.
  7. No visible security headers detected in provided data.
  8. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules violation error, which is unusual.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using a combination of jQuery 3.6.0 and Bootstrap 3.0 frameworks, supported by the ClientZone Framework 3.0 for additional functionality. The site is responsive and mobile-optimized with structured data (JSON-LD) for SEO and business information. External resources are loaded from reputable CDNs such as Google APIs and ClientZone. Performance is moderate with no major issues detected, but there is room for optimization. The CMS or hosting provider is not explicitly identified, though the site is powered by YourFirmOnline, a known provider for accounting firms. Accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA attributes are present, indicating good compliance. However, the absence of security headers and cookie consent mechanisms suggests technical debt in security and privacy implementation.
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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