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Security report for chs.agency

Clive Holmes Ltd. · Media · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

68/100

Risk levelMedium

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

CHS is a well-established, independent creative agency based in Dorset, UK, with a history dating back to 1973. The company offers integrated creative services including branding, advertising, digital technology, content production, and communications. It serves a broad range of UK clients, including notable brands such as HSBC, Allianz, and Lakeland, positioning itself as a leading agency outside London. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand image with excellent content quality and user experience. Technically, the website is built on WordPress 7.0.2 with modern libraries such as jQuery, Bootstrap, and GSAP, ensuring a responsive and accessible user interface. The site uses HTTPS with good SSL configuration and integrates analytics tools like Google Analytics and CANDDi for user tracking. However, some security best practices such as security headers and explicit incident response policies are missing. From a security perspective, the site demonstrates a solid posture with no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. The lack of explicit security policies and cookie consent mechanisms suggests room for improvement in privacy compliance. WHOIS data is privacy protected, which is typical for agencies, and no suspicious patterns were detected. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professionally maintained. Strategic recommendations include implementing security headers, publishing security and incident response policies, enhancing GDPR compliance with cookie consent, and maintaining regular audits of third-party scripts to mitigate risks. These steps will strengthen the security posture and enhance 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

5 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Security headers

    Security headers are instructions your web server sends to every visitor’s browser. Missing ones leave visitors more exposed to attacks such as clickjacking and injected scripts.

    • High

      Missing Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing Content-Security-Policy header

      Controls resources the browser is allowed to load

      What to do: Implement a Content-Security-Policy appropriate for your application

      • ASVS V3.4.3
      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; form-action 'self'; base-uri 'self'; object-src 'none';…

  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

  3. 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
    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching chs.agency

This scan found 23 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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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
37
Security headers
50
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
68

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

CHS operates in the media sector as a medium-sized creative agency with a strong UK market presence. Its business model focuses on providing comprehensive creative solutions under one roof, targeting heritage brands, startups, and established companies seeking brand repositioning and integrated marketing campaigns. The agency's competitive advantage lies in its integrated service offering, notable client portfolio, and regional leadership outside London. Revenue streams likely include project-based fees and retainer contracts. The company maintains active social media channels and holds a Crown Commercial Supplier certification, indicating government contracting capability. Growth indicators include recent case studies and insights published on the website. The partnership ecosystem includes major brands but no explicit partner domains were identified.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and no visible sensitive data leaks. The absence of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options is a gap that could expose the site to certain attacks. No incident response or security policy pages were found, which limits transparency and preparedness communication. GDPR compliance is partially addressed via privacy and cookie policies, but lacks a consent mechanism. The use of third-party tracking scripts introduces moderate tracking risk, though no vulnerable libraries were detected. Overall, the security culture appears professional but could benefit from formalized policies and enhanced technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to improve transparency and readiness.
  3. Add a cookie consent banner/mechanism to ensure full GDPR compliance.
  4. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and tracking tools to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Consider publishing a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Clive Holmes Ltd.
Registration number
01109337
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Clive Holmes Ltd.
Description
We are CHS. A proudly independent, integrated creative agency, with a mantra that runs through everything we do. To go Beyond Expectation.
Key services
Brand Development, Advertising, Content Creation, Digital & Technology, Communications
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 7.0.2, jQuery 3.6.0, Bootstrap 5.1.3, Swiper Carousel 11, GSAP 3.2.4, Google Analytics, CANDDi tracking
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, CANDDi
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
CANDDi
Marketing tools
CANDDi
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is professionally designed and well-structured
  2. Content is rich and relevant to creative agency services
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity
  4. Social media presence is active and consistent
  5. WHOIS data is limited but not suspicious
  6. No explicit security policies or incident response information publicly available
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern WordPress platform with up-to-date libraries such as jQuery 3.6.0, Bootstrap 5.1.3, and GSAP 3.2.4, providing a responsive and interactive user experience. The use of Swiper Carousel enhances content presentation. Google Analytics and CANDDi are integrated for analytics and tracking. The site loads moderately fast with good mobile optimization and accessibility features. SEO is supported by Yoast SEO plugin with proper meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD). Hosting provider details are not explicitly identified. Technical debt appears low, but security header implementation and cookie consent mechanisms are areas for modernization.
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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