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Security report for bestfriendspets.com.au

Best Friends Pets · Retail · Australia

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Best Friends Pets operates as a retail pet care and supplies business in Australia, recently transitioning its brand to PetO. The website serves as an e-commerce platform built on Shopify, offering pet products, grooming services, and links to veterinary care partners. The site targets pet owners seeking local pet care solutions and supplies. Technically, the website is well-implemented using modern web technologies, including Shopify's Dawn theme, JavaScript, and CSS, with good mobile optimization and performance. Security measures include HTTPS and hCaptcha for form protection, though the absence of published privacy and cookie policies indicates gaps in compliance. The domain registration is consistent and legitimate, registered through a reputable registrar with standard domain protection statuses. Overall, the website presents a professional retail presence with moderate trustworthiness but requires improvements in privacy compliance and contact transparency.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
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

6 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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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

    • High

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google Analytics, Facebook

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

  2. 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

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching bestfriendspets.com.au

This scan found 24 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
49
Security headers
75
Email security
60
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
65

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 company positions itself as a local pet care retailer with a focus on pet supplies and grooming, leveraging partnerships with veterinary services and a brand transition to PetO. The business model is retail-focused with physical stores and an online presence. The target market includes pet owners in Australia, with a medium-sized operation indicated by the website scale and service offerings. The partnership ecosystem includes PetO and Our Vet, enhancing service breadth. The website's Shopify platform supports scalability and integration with marketing and analytics tools. Growth indicators include brand evolution and active social media engagement. Strategic observations suggest a need for enhanced compliance documentation and clearer customer contact channels to strengthen credibility.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a solid security foundation with HTTPS enforced and the use of hCaptcha to protect forms from automated abuse. However, the lack of visible security policies, incident response contacts, and cookie consent mechanisms reveals compliance and transparency gaps. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The domain lacks DNSSEC, which could be considered for enhanced DNS security. Overall, the security posture is good but could be improved by publishing comprehensive privacy and security policies, implementing cookie consent, and providing incident response contacts to meet regulatory standards and build user trust.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy accessible from the website footer or main navigation.
  2. Implement a cookie consent banner to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  3. Add terms of service and security policy pages to enhance transparency and legal compliance.
  4. Provide clear contact information including emails and phone numbers for customer support and security incident reporting.
  5. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and prevent spoofing.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Best Friends Pets
Description
Shop for your best friends in store now at Best Friends Pets stores. Your local Best Friends Pets store has become PetO! You’ll see the new PetO look—but don’t worry, everything you love is still here, along with your friendly local team.
Key services
Pet care products, Pet supplies, Store locator, Grooming services, Veterinary services (via Our Vet link)
Content quality
good
Branding
moderate

Technology

Stack
Shopify, JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, hCaptcha
Frameworks
Shopify Dawn theme
Platforms
Shopify
Performance
fast
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of hCaptcha for form protection
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Shopify Analytics, Google Analytics (via gtag.js), Facebook Pixel
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel, Google Ads (gtag.js)
Marketing tools
Shopify Analytics, TagFly (via web-pixels-manager)
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a Shopify-based e-commerce site focused on pet care and supplies.
  2. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages found in the HTML content.
  3. Social media presence on Facebook and Instagram is linked.
  4. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found in the visible content.
  5. Site uses modern web technologies and is mobile optimized.
  6. Security practices include HTTPS and hCaptcha but lack published security or privacy policies.
  7. No signs of adult or unsafe content.
  8. Domain WHOIS data is consistent and shows standard domain protection statuses.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Shopify platform using the Dawn theme, leveraging modern web standards including HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. It integrates third-party analytics and marketing tools such as Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixel. Performance is optimized with CDN hosting via Shopify and asynchronous loading of scripts. Accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA roles are present, indicating good accessibility practices. The site is mobile responsive and SEO optimized with proper meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD). Technical risks are minimal, with no outdated or vulnerable libraries detected. Opportunities exist to improve compliance-related technical implementations such as cookie consent management.
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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