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Security report for brownthomas.com

Brown Thomas · Retail · Ireland

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Brown Thomas is a leading luxury retail department store in Ireland, offering designer fashion, beauty products, homewares, and gifts through both physical stores and a comprehensive e-commerce platform. The website demonstrates a mature digital infrastructure leveraging Salesforce Commerce Cloud, with integrations for advanced analytics, personalization, and marketing tools. The site is professionally designed with excellent user experience, clear navigation, and mobile optimization. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and no exposed sensitive data, though some security headers could be enhanced. Privacy policies are comprehensive and GDPR compliant, but the cookie consent mechanism is not actively enforced. Overall, the website presents a trustworthy and credible online presence for a large retail business.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
43/ 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

4 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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • 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

  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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • High

      Unregistered MX Record

      MX record points to unregistered domain: ms79306661.msv1.invalid

      What to do: Remove or fix MX record pointing to unregistered domain

      • RFC 5321 §5.1
      • NIS2 21(2)(i)
      • IR 2024/2690 12.4: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 12.4: Asset inventory
      • NIST CM-8: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-8: System Component Inventory

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

Keep watching brownthomas.com

This scan found 17 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.

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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
0
Security headers
75
Email security
85
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
43
Average
61

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

Brown Thomas operates in the luxury retail sector targeting affluent consumers primarily in Ireland and the UK. The business model combines online and offline retail with a strong emphasis on exclusive brands and customer loyalty programs. The company maintains multiple store locations and offers services such as appointment booking and international shipping. The website's integration with multiple marketing and analytics platforms indicates a data-driven approach to customer engagement and sales optimization. Partnerships with recognized analytics and advertising providers further support its market positioning and growth strategies.

Security posture

The website maintains a good security posture with HTTPS enabled and no visible exposure of sensitive information. Use of CAPTCHA on forms and CSRF protections are implied by the underlying platform. However, explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options are not evident in the HTML content and should be implemented to enhance protection against common web attacks. No vulnerabilities or malware indicators were detected. Incident response and security policy information are not publicly available, which could be improved to demonstrate security maturity and readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce a Content-Security-Policy header to mitigate cross-site scripting and related attacks.
  2. Add security headers such as X-Frame-Options and X-Content-Type-Options to protect against clickjacking and MIME sniffing.
  3. Activate a cookie consent mechanism to comply fully with privacy regulations and enhance user trust.
  4. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and preparedness.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and dependencies to ensure no vulnerable libraries are included.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Brown Thomas
Description
Brown Thomas, where you'll find world's most exclusive luxury brands, just for you.
Key services
Online retail of designer fashion, beauty, homewares, gifts, In-store shopping experience, Loyalty program, Appointment booking for beauty services, International shipping
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.6.0, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, YouTube iframe API, Adobe Typekit, Demandware (Salesforce Commerce Cloud), Algonomy (RichRelevance), CQuotient, Apple Pay integration, Font Awesome, WebFont Loader
Frameworks
Salesforce Commerce Cloud (Demandware)
Platforms
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of CSRF tokens (implied by Demandware platform)
  • Secure cookie attributes (implied)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of CAPTCHA on contact forms

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager, Marketing Cloud Analytics, Hotjar, Rakuten Marketing, Algonomy (RichRelevance)
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Rakuten Marketing
Tracking pixels
Hotjar, Marketing Cloud Analytics, Rakuten Marketing
Marketing tools
Hotjar, Marketing Cloud Analytics, CQuotient, Algonomy (RichRelevance)
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professionally designed luxury retail e-commerce platform.
  2. Strong brand presence with multiple store locations in Ireland.
  3. Comprehensive product categories and brand listings.
  4. Use of multiple third-party marketing and analytics tools.
  5. No signs of blocking or WAF interference.
  6. Security headers could be improved for enhanced protection.
  7. Privacy and cookie policies are present but cookie consent mechanism is not active.
  8. No explicit security or incident response policies found.
  9. No direct company contact emails or phone numbers found in HTML content.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, utilizing modern JavaScript libraries including jQuery 3.6.0 and various third-party integrations for analytics, personalization, and marketing. The site loads asynchronously many scripts to optimize performance, though the overall loading speed is moderate. Mobile responsiveness and accessibility features are well implemented. SEO practices are good with proper meta tags, canonical links, and structured data (JSON-LD) for enhanced search engine understanding. The technical infrastructure supports a robust e-commerce experience but could benefit from additional security header implementations and performance optimizations.
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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