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Security report for hertsandessexmotorcompany.co.uk

Herts & Essex Motor Company · Transportation · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

55/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Herts & Essex Motor Company operates as a local used car dealership based in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, UK. The company offers a wide range of used vehicles from multiple brands, along with finance options, vehicle valuation, part exchange, warranty, and delivery services. Their market position is that of a regional dealer targeting customers seeking quality used cars with flexible financing. The website is professionally designed with good content quality, clear navigation, and mobile responsiveness, supporting a positive user experience. Technically, the site uses a common car dealership CMS platform (Car Dealer 5) with jQuery, Google reCAPTCHA, and finance widgets integrated, though some modern security headers and policies are missing. Security posture is moderate with HTTPS and CAPTCHA in place but lacks advanced headers and published security policies. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules violation, which slightly impacts trust but the website content and contact information appear legitimate. Overall, the site is functional and credible for its business purpose but could improve privacy and security transparency.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
95/ 100 · Low
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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • 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. 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

  3. Network security

    Services reachable from the internet are the first thing attackers probe. Anything open that does not need to be should be closed.

    • High

      High-Risk Service Exposed: FTP

      Port 21 (FTP) is publicly accessible - FTP - Often unencrypted file transfer

      What to do: Consider restricting access to FTP or implementing strong authentication

      • NIS2 21(2)(e)
      • IR 2024/2690 6.7.2(f): Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 6.7.2(f): Network security
      • NIST CM-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-7: Least Functionality
      • NIST SC-7: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-7: Boundary Protection

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

Keep watching hertsandessexmotorcompany.co.uk

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.

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Recommended

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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
47
Security headers
20
Email security
80
DNS health
70
Network security
20
GDPR outside view
95
Average
55

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 business targets used car buyers primarily in the Hoddesdon and Hertfordshire region, offering a broad selection of vehicle brands and body types. Their business model includes direct retail sales, financing through third-party lenders (CarFinance247), and additional services like vehicle valuation and part exchange. The company leverages social media (Facebook) for customer engagement and trust building. The website content and structure indicate a small-sized enterprise focused on local market penetration. The integration of finance calculators and monthly budget selectors suggests a customer-centric approach to affordability. No parent or subsidiary companies are identified. The business maintains a consistent brand presence and trust signals such as customer reviews and an AA Promise page, enhancing credibility.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and uses Google reCAPTCHA to protect forms from automated abuse, which are positive security practices. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options reduces the overall security posture. There is no visible security policy or incident response contact information published, which limits transparency for vulnerability reporting. The lack of a security.txt file or vulnerability disclosure program is a gap in security maturity. No known vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the provided content. The site would benefit from implementing recommended security headers, publishing security policies, and improving accessibility compliance to enhance security and user trust.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including CSP, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options to mitigate common web attacks.
  2. Publish a clear privacy policy and terms of service pages to improve compliance and user trust.
  3. Create and maintain a security.txt file and incident response contact to facilitate vulnerability reporting.
  4. Regularly update third-party libraries and plugins to reduce risk of vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance accessibility features to improve inclusivity and compliance with standards.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Herts & Essex Motor Company
Description
Used cars for sale in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire from Herts & Essex Motor Company. Visit our showroom or call for more information on our range of used cars.
Key services
Used car sales, Vehicle valuation, Finance options, Part exchange, Delivery services, Warranty
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 2.2.4, Google reCAPTCHA, CarFinance247 widgets, Owl Carousel, Select2, RoundSlider, FontAwesome 4.7.0, Google Fonts (Montserrat)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
60/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced (implied by https URLs)
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA on forms
  • Cookie consent mechanism present

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Marketing tools
CarFinance247 finance widgets
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenge
  2. WHOIS data unavailable due to domain naming rules violation
  3. Business is a local used car dealership in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire
  4. Multiple contact methods clearly provided
  5. Use of finance widgets and social media integration
  6. No explicit privacy or terms of service pages found
  7. Cookie consent mechanism implemented
  8. No visible advanced security headers or policies
  9. Modern but basic technical stack with jQuery and common plugins
  10. Good mobile responsiveness and SEO metadata present
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Car Dealer 5 CMS platform, utilizing jQuery 2.2.4, Google reCAPTCHA, and several UI libraries such as Owl Carousel and Select2. The site loads multiple CSS and JS assets with preload hints for performance optimization. Google Fonts (Montserrat) and FontAwesome icons are used for styling. The site is mobile responsive with media queries and adaptive layouts. SEO metadata including Open Graph tags and JSON-LD structured data for AutoDealer schema are implemented, supporting search engine visibility. However, no advanced frameworks or modern JavaScript libraries (e.g., React, Angular) are detected, indicating a traditional web stack. Performance is moderate with some scope for optimization. Hosting provider details are not evident from the content. Overall, the technical infrastructure is stable but could benefit from modernization and enhanced security configurations.
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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