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Security report for labtestsonline.org.uk

Association for Laboratory Medicine · Healthcare · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

68/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Lab Tests Online-UK is a well-established, reputable educational website providing comprehensive information on clinical laboratory tests for patients and the general public in the United Kingdom. It is produced by the Association for Laboratory Medicine in collaboration with other professional bodies, positioning itself as a trusted resource in the healthcare sector. The website offers extensive content including test indexes, condition information, health screenings, and news updates, targeting patients seeking to understand laboratory diagnostics. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 9, employs modern analytics and tracking tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar, and is hosted by GoDaddy.com, LLC. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, though performance is moderate. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and cookie consent implemented, but could be improved by adding explicit security headers and publishing a security policy. No critical vulnerabilities or suspicious patterns were detected. Overall, the website scores well on content quality, technical implementation, security, privacy compliance, and business credibility, making it a reliable and professional online resource.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
65/ 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

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 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

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google Analytics, Facebook, Cloudflare

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

  3. 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

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

Keep watching labtestsonline.org.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
62
Security headers
50
Email security
70
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
65
Average
68

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 website operates as a non-profit educational platform funded by professional healthcare associations, serving the UK healthcare sector. Its market position is strong as a trusted source for laboratory test information, supported by collaborations with recognized institutions such as the Royal College of Pathologists and the Institute of Biomedical Science. The business model focuses on providing free, authoritative content to patients and healthcare consumers. The partnership ecosystem is robust, with clear links to reputable organizations. Growth indicators include continuous content updates and integration of new tests. Revenue streams are likely grant and association funded rather than commercial. The site maintains professional branding and consistent messaging aligned with its mission.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and no exposed sensitive data. It uses asynchronous loading of analytics and tracking scripts to minimize performance impact. However, explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options are not detected, representing an area for improvement. There is no published security policy or incident response information, and no vulnerability disclosure mechanism is present. The absence of direct security contact emails limits incident reporting capabilities. Overall, the site follows good security practices but could enhance transparency and defense-in-depth measures.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to improve protection against common web attacks.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to increase transparency and preparedness.
  3. Add a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Provide explicit security contact channels such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  5. Continue monitoring and updating third-party scripts and dependencies to avoid vulnerabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Association for Laboratory Medicine
Description
Lab Tests Online-UK is written by practising laboratory doctors and scientists to help you understand the many clinical laboratory tests that are used in diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of disease. It is produced by the Association for Laboratory Medicine in collaboration with the Royal College of Pathologists and the Institute of Biomedical Science.
Key services
Educational content on lab tests, Index of tests and conditions, Health screening recommendations, News and updates related to laboratory medicine
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 9, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Font Awesome
Frameworks
Drupal
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google Tag Manager and Hotjar scripts loaded asynchronously

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Hotjar
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Hotjar
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a reputable educational resource for laboratory tests in the UK.
  2. Content is authored by professional laboratory medicine associations.
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity.
  4. Good use of modern web technologies and analytics.
  5. Cookie consent and privacy policies are implemented.
  6. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on homepage; contact form available.
  7. No explicit security policy or incident response information published.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 9 CMS, leveraging modern web technologies including Font Awesome for icons and asynchronous loading of Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Hotjar for analytics and user behavior tracking. The hosting provider is GoDaddy.com, LLC. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and accessibility features such as skip links. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and structured navigation menus. Performance is moderate, likely due to the extensive content and multiple scripts. There is room for technical optimization in security headers and possibly caching strategies to improve speed. The site architecture supports scalability and content management efficiency.
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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