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Security report for jamcnicholl.co.uk

J.A.McNicholl & Company Limited · Finance · United Kingdom

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

Security score

60/100

Risk levelMedium

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

J.A.McNicholl & Company Limited is a small UK-based accounting firm established in 1982, offering Chartered Certified and Management Accounting services. The company targets businesses seeking financial management and business assistance, with key services including new business start-up support and Making Tax Digital compliance. The website is built on the BaseKit CMS platform and hosted by Fasthosts, featuring basic design and navigation with moderate mobile optimization. Security posture is limited, with no visible HTTPS enforcement or security headers, and no privacy or cookie policies implemented. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules violation, raising concerns about domain legitimacy despite professional website content. Overall, the website presents a moderate risk profile with recommendations to improve security, privacy compliance, and domain registration transparency.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
50/ 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 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

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

Keep watching jamcnicholl.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.

Daily monitoring

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
40
Email security
55
DNS health
65
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
50
Average
60

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 holds ACCA membership, indicating professional certification and trustworthiness in the accounting sector. The business model focuses on providing accounting and financial consultancy services primarily to small and medium enterprises. The website content and structure suggest a local or regional market focus without extensive digital marketing or analytics integration. No social media or partner domains are linked, indicating limited online partnership ecosystem. The absence of privacy and cookie policies may impact compliance with GDPR and other regulations, potentially affecting customer trust and legal standing.

Security posture

The website lacks critical security features such as HTTPS enforcement, security headers, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. No incident response or security contact information is provided. The absence of privacy and cookie policies further weakens compliance posture. No analytics or tracking scripts were detected, reducing exposure to third-party data sharing risks but also limiting user behavior insights. The domain WHOIS lookup failure and naming rules violation suggest potential administrative or legitimacy issues. Overall, the security maturity is low, with significant room for improvement to protect user data and enhance trust.

Recommendations

  1. Implement HTTPS with a valid SSL/TLS certificate and enforce secure connections site-wide.
  2. Add comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with user consent mechanisms to comply with GDPR.
  3. Publish a security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and readiness.
  4. Obtain and verify proper domain registration details to resolve WHOIS inconsistencies and improve legitimacy.
  5. Enhance website accessibility, SEO, and mobile optimization to improve user experience and reach.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
J.A.McNicholl & Company Limited
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
J.A.McNicholl & Company Limited
Description
J.A. McNicholl & Company was established in 1982 and has over 35 years experience in Accounting and Finance. The company offers Chartered Certified and Management Accounting services to assist businesses in financial management and business assistance.
Key services
Chartered Certified Accounting, Management Accounting, New Business Start-up Assistance, Making Tax Digital (MTD) Services
Content quality
basic
Branding
moderate

Technology

Stack
BaseKit, FontAwesome, Lato font, PhotoSwipe
Performance
moderate
Mobile
basic
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
40/100

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is accessible with full content
  2. No privacy, cookie, or terms of service policies found
  3. Contact information is present in header with phone and email
  4. No social media links detected
  5. No forms detected in the provided HTML content
  6. Website uses BaseKit CMS and is hosted by Fasthosts
  7. No analytics or tracking scripts detected
  8. No security headers or advanced security features detected
  9. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules violation
  10. Website content is safe and professional
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses BaseKit CMS with embedded fonts (Lato, FontAwesome) and PhotoSwipe for image handling. Hosting is provided by Fasthosts. The site loads CSS asynchronously and attempts local font caching for performance. No modern JavaScript frameworks or analytics tools are detected. The site has moderate performance but basic mobile responsiveness and accessibility features. SEO metadata is minimal with empty description and keywords. No security headers or advanced configurations are evident. The domain WHOIS data is missing, indicating potential technical or administrative issues with domain registration.
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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