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Security report for hoganbrown.co.uk

Hogan Brown Limited · Other · United Kingdom

High risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

48/100

Risk levelHigh

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

Hogan Brown Limited is a small legal services firm based in Liverpool, UK, specializing in criminal law with a focus on white collar crime, tax investigations, and regulatory work. The firm emphasizes a traditional, hard-working approach to client defense, targeting individuals and businesses requiring expert criminal defense and regulatory legal services. The website reflects a professional legal practice with clear service offerings and trust indicators such as SRA regulation and Lexcel accreditation. Technically, the website employs modern front-end technologies including Bootstrap, jQuery, Font Awesome, and Google reCAPTCHA to secure contact forms. The site is mobile optimized and presents a good user experience, although some accessibility and SEO improvements are possible. No major performance or technical issues were detected, but security headers and SSL configuration details were not available for review. From a security perspective, the site uses Google reCAPTCHA to mitigate spam and discloses professional indemnity insurance, enhancing trust. However, the absence of explicit cookie consent mechanisms and security headers suggests room for improvement in privacy compliance and security posture. The WHOIS lookup failed due to domain naming rules, limiting domain registration insights, but the website content and trust signals strongly indicate legitimacy. Overall, Hogan Brown's website is a well-structured, professional platform for a specialized legal practice with moderate technical maturity and a solid foundation for improving privacy and security compliance.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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

7 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. 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 hoganbrown.co.uk

This scan found 26 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
47
Security headers
20
Email security
80
DNS health
70
Network security
20
GDPR outside view
53
Average
48

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

Hogan Brown operates as a niche legal services provider focusing on criminal defense and regulatory law in Liverpool. Their market positioning as a premier criminal law firm is supported by specialized services in white collar crime and tax fraud. The business model centers on providing high-quality, dedicated legal representation with a limited caseload to ensure thorough preparation. Revenue streams likely derive from client legal fees in criminal and regulatory cases. The firm maintains a professional reputation supported by regulatory compliance and certifications. The limited social media presence and absence of extensive marketing tools suggest a focus on direct client relationships and referrals. Growth indicators include published diversity data and active news updates. The partnership ecosystem includes links to legal regulatory bodies and local law societies, reinforcing credibility.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with the implementation of Google reCAPTCHA on all contact forms to prevent spam and abuse. The disclosure of professional indemnity insurance and regulatory compliance adds to the security culture. However, the lack of visible security headers such as Content Security Policy, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options, as well as the absence of a cookie consent mechanism, indicates gaps in security best practices and privacy compliance. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies are published, limiting transparency in security incident handling. The WHOIS data unavailability is a minor concern but likely due to domain query method rather than malicious intent. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a small legal firm but could be enhanced with improved headers, privacy controls, and published security policies.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce HTTP security headers including Content Security Policy, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to strengthen site security.
  2. Add a comprehensive cookie policy and explicit user consent mechanism to comply with GDPR and enhance privacy transparency.
  3. Publish an incident response plan and vulnerability disclosure policy to improve security transparency and readiness.
  4. Ensure SSL/TLS configuration is strong and enforce HTTPS site-wide with automatic redirects.
  5. Include contact details for a Data Protection Officer or privacy contact to comply with data protection regulations and build user trust.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Hogan Brown Limited
VAT number
GB 988006587
Registration number
7185601
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Hogan Brown Limited
Description
Liverpool specialist solicitor in white collar crime, tax investigations and regulatory work. The firm adopts a traditional approach emphasizing hard work and preparation to achieve the best results in high profile cases.
Key services
General Criminal Defence, Motoring Offences, Cash Seizures, Restraint Orders, Confiscation Proceedings, Money Laundering, Business Crime and Fraud, Tax Fraud, Extradition, Computer Crime
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Bootstrap, jQuery, Font Awesome, Google Fonts (Ubuntu), Slick Carousel, Google reCAPTCHA v2 Invisible
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA on forms to prevent spam
  • Professional indemnity insurance disclosed

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules error, limiting domain registration insights.
  3. Website uses modern front-end technologies and includes Google reCAPTCHA for form security.
  4. Contact forms collect personal data with required fields and use invisible reCAPTCHA for spam prevention.
  5. No explicit cookie policy or consent banner detected, which is a GDPR compliance gap.
  6. Privacy policy and complaints procedure pages are present and linked in footer.
  7. Phone contact is prominently displayed with UK number +44 (0)151 243 7500.
  8. Social media presence limited to LinkedIn only.
  9. No analytics or tracking scripts detected beyond Google reCAPTCHA.
  10. Website content is professional, relevant, and consistent with a small legal services firm.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern front-end technology stack with Bootstrap for responsive design, jQuery for DOM manipulation, Font Awesome for icons, and Google Fonts for typography. The inclusion of Slick Carousel enhances UI interactivity. Google reCAPTCHA v2 Invisible is integrated for form security. The site lacks a detected CMS, suggesting a custom or static site build. Performance is moderate with no major issues detected, and mobile optimization is good. SEO is basic with meta tags and Open Graph tags present but could be improved with structured data and enhanced accessibility features. Hosting provider and backend technologies are not identifiable from the provided data. Overall, the technical implementation is solid 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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