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Security report for iabuk.com

IAB UK · Media · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

IAB UK is a prominent industry body uniting over 300 members from the digital advertising ecosystem in the United Kingdom. The organization focuses on championing innovation, setting standards, providing research, and hosting events and training to support sustainable growth in digital advertising. Their website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive content, clear navigation, and strong branding consistency. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 11 with modern JavaScript libraries and integrates Google Tag Manager for analytics. However, the security posture is weak due to the absence of a valid SSL certificate and lack of modern TLS protocols, which significantly impacts the site's security score. Privacy and cookie policies are present and indicate GDPR compliance, enhancing trust and regulatory adherence. Overall, the site demonstrates high business credibility but requires urgent improvements in SSL/TLS configuration to ensure secure user interactions.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of iabuk.com. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
43/ 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

4 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 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 iabuk.com

This scan found 20 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
85
Security headers
40
Email security
70
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
43
Average
71

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

IAB UK operates as an essential media industry association with a focus on digital advertising standards, policy advocacy, and member services. Their market position is strong within the UK digital advertising sector, supported by a diverse membership base including agencies, brands, and technology providers. The organization leverages events, research reports, and certification programs like the IAB Gold Standard to maintain industry leadership. Their digital infrastructure supports member engagement and content dissemination effectively, though the lack of HTTPS may hinder trust and user confidence. The presence of multiple social media channels and a podcast indicates a broad communication strategy. No direct revenue streams or parent/subsidiary relationships were identified from the data.

Security posture

The website's security posture is currently inadequate due to the lack of a valid SSL certificate and disabled TLS protocols, exposing users to potential data interception risks. While some security headers are implemented, critical best practices such as HSTS, OCSP stapling, and session resumption are missing. No explicit security policies or incident response contacts were found, which may limit the organization's ability to handle security incidents effectively. The SPF record is well configured, reducing email spoofing risks. Overall, the site requires immediate remediation of SSL/TLS issues and enhancement of security policies to align with industry standards and protect user data.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS across the entire site.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and disable outdated protocols.
  3. Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload options.
  4. Enable OCSP stapling to improve certificate revocation checking performance.
  5. Publish a clear security policy and incident response plan accessible from the website.
  6. Add explicit contact channels for security incidents (e.g., security@ or abuse@ email addresses).
  7. Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability scans to identify and remediate risks.
  8. Enhance cookie consent mechanisms to ensure full compliance with GDPR and ePrivacy regulations.
  9. Improve performance monitoring and optimization to provide faster page load times.
  10. Maintain and update third-party libraries and dependencies to avoid vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by Drupal 11 CMS with Commerce 3 module, indicating a modern and scalable content management platform. It uses jQuery and jQuery UI libraries for frontend interactivity, along with third-party scripts like AddEvent for calendar integrations and Google Tag Manager for analytics. The site is hosted behind Cloudflare CDN, providing caching and DDoS protection. However, the SSL/TLS configuration is missing or misconfigured, which is a critical technical flaw. Performance metrics are unavailable, suggesting a need for monitoring. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA labels. SEO is supported by canonical tags, meta descriptions, and structured navigation menus.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 71/100 +7Medium27 findingsView report
  2. 64/100 −6Medium28 findingsView report
  3. 70/100 −1Medium28 findingsView report
  4. 71/100Medium27 findingsView report
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