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Security report for ellesmere.com

Ellesmere College · Education · United Kingdom

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

Security score

75/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Ellesmere College is a well-established independent educational institution in the UK, offering comprehensive academic programs for students aged 7 to 18, including boarding and co-curricular activities. The website reflects a professional and content-rich platform targeting prospective students and parents, with clear navigation and consistent branding. Technically, the site uses modern web technologies including Google Tag Manager, Weglot for translations, and Chatbase for chatbot functionality, hosted on a Finalsite CMS platform. Security posture is generally good with HTTPS enabled and no visible vulnerabilities, though explicit security headers and privacy policies are missing. The absence of WHOIS domain registration data is a concern for domain legitimacy, but the website content and structure support the institution's credibility. Overall, the site is safe, professional, and well-optimized, but improvements in privacy compliance and domain transparency are recommended.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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

4 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
    • 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

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

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

Keep watching ellesmere.com

This scan found 18 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
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
75

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

Ellesmere College operates in the education sector as a private boarding and day school with a strong emphasis on academic excellence and holistic development through sports academies and enrichment programs. The institution targets families seeking quality education in the UK and maintains partnerships with international branches and alumni networks. The business model relies on tuition fees, scholarships, and boarding services. The website demonstrates a mature digital presence with integration of marketing and analytics tools, though lacks some compliance documentation. The college's market position is solid, supported by a long history and accreditation as a High Performance Learning World School.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and uses reputable third-party services for analytics and chatbot functions, indicating a baseline security maturity. However, the lack of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and absence of published privacy and cookie policies represent compliance gaps. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure information is available, which could hinder timely security communication. The missing WHOIS data for the domain raises questions about domain registration transparency. Overall, the security posture is moderate with room for improvement in policy transparency and technical security controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and prominently display comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to enhance GDPR compliance.
  2. Add security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to improve security posture.
  3. Publish incident response and vulnerability disclosure information to facilitate security communication.
  4. Investigate and resolve the missing WHOIS domain registration data to improve domain trustworthiness.
  5. Enhance accessibility features to meet higher standards and improve user experience for all users.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Ellesmere College
Description
Ellesmere College is an educational institution providing schooling for ages 7 to 18, with a focus on academic excellence, co-curricular activities, pastoral care, and boarding facilities. It offers various academic programs including Lower School, Middle School, and Sixth Form, alongside sports academies and enrichment programs.
Key services
Academic education (7-18 years), Boarding facilities, Sports academies, Scholarships and bursaries, Co-curricular activities
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, YouTube iframe API, Google Tag Manager, Weglot translation, Chatbase chatbot, Finalsite CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Use of Google Tag Manager with async loading
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Marketing tools
Weglot translation, Chatbase chatbot
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional educational institution site with rich content and clear navigation.
  2. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found on the homepage or main navigation.
  3. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found in the visible content or forms.
  4. Multiple Google Tag Manager containers detected, possibly redundant.
  5. Use of third-party services for translation (Weglot) and chatbot (Chatbase).
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  7. No explicit security or incident response policies found.
  8. WHOIS data is missing, which is unusual and reduces domain trust.
  9. No signs of adult or unsafe content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Finalsite CMS platform and utilizes modern JavaScript libraries and APIs including YouTube iframe API, Google Tag Manager, Weglot for multilingual support, and Chatbase for chatbot integration. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and good SEO practices including meta tags and Open Graph data. Performance is moderate with asynchronous loading of scripts. However, multiple Google Tag Manager containers may indicate redundant tracking setups. Accessibility is basic and could be improved. No major technical debt or outdated technologies detected, but security headers and privacy compliance mechanisms are lacking.
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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