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Security report for howells-railway.co.uk

Howells Railway Products Ltd · Transportation · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

62/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Howells Railway Products Ltd is a UK-based manufacturer specializing in precision railway equipment with over 70 years of industry experience. The company offers a diverse range of products and services including specialist design, manufacturing, and re-engineering, serving clients globally across more than 36 countries. Their market position is supported by strong client relationships with major industry players and recognized certifications such as Rail Approved, RISQS, and BSI. Technically, the website is built on WordPress using common plugins like Yoast SEO and Contact Form 7, with integration of Google Analytics and Typekit fonts. The site is well-structured, mobile-optimized, and provides a professional user experience. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS enabled and no exposed sensitive data, but lacks explicit security headers and shows minor backend PHP notices. Privacy and cookie policies are not found, indicating room for compliance improvement. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules violation, which slightly impacts trust from a domain registration perspective but does not detract from the business legitimacy evident on the site. Overall, the website reflects a credible and established business with moderate technical maturity and some security and compliance gaps to address.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 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

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 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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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 howells-railway.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
57
Security headers
25
Email security
85
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
62

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 company operates in the transportation and manufacturing sectors, focusing on railway infrastructure products and services. Their business model centers on product design, manufacturing, and re-engineering tailored to client needs, supported by a manufacturing facility and specialist design collaborations. The presence of major clients and certifications indicates a strong market position and competitive advantage. The website content and branding are consistent and professional, targeting industry stakeholders and infrastructure providers. Growth is indicated by global reach and long-standing client relationships. The company does not publicly disclose parent or subsidiary relationships. The digital presence is solid but could benefit from enhanced privacy and security disclosures to align with regulatory expectations.

Security posture

The website employs HTTPS and uses secure plugins for contact forms, which are positive security practices. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection reduces the overall security posture. The visible PHP notice error in the news section suggests some backend code issues that could potentially expose information or lead to vulnerabilities if not addressed. No evidence of incident response or vulnerability disclosure policies was found, indicating limited transparency in security incident handling. Privacy compliance is minimal with no explicit policies or consent mechanisms detected. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but requires improvements in headers, error handling, and privacy compliance to reduce risk.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear GDPR compliance and consent mechanisms.
  2. Add and configure essential security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection.
  3. Fix backend PHP notices and conduct regular code audits to prevent information leakage and vulnerabilities.
  4. Establish and publish incident response and vulnerability disclosure policies to enhance security transparency.
  5. Regularly update and audit all plugins and third-party libraries to mitigate risks from known vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Howells Railway Products Ltd
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Howells Railway Products Ltd
Description
Manufacturers of precision railway equipment. Tried & tested industry experts in the manufacture & design of specialist railway equipment for over 70 years.
Key services
Product design and manufacture, Specialist design collaboration, Manufacturing facility services, Re-engineering of products
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery, Google Analytics, Yoast SEO plugin, Contact Form 7, Typekit Fonts
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of secure contact form plugin

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and multimedia
  2. Professional manufacturing business with strong industry presence
  3. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found
  4. Contact information is clear but no direct emails found, only contact page link
  5. Minor backend PHP notice error visible in news section
  6. No explicit security headers detected in provided data
  7. Uses WordPress CMS with common plugins
  8. No WAF or blocking detected
  9. WHOIS data unavailable due to domain naming rules error
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS with a modern tech stack including jQuery, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Typekit fonts. The site uses Yoast SEO for optimization and Contact Form 7 for user interaction. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and basic accessibility features. The site structure is clear with well-organized navigation and rich multimedia content. Minor technical debt is indicated by PHP notices and lack of security headers. Hosting provider details are not explicitly identified. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports a professional online presence but could benefit from enhanced security configurations and privacy features.
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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