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Security report for legislation.gov.uk

The National Archives · Government · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Email security, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

63/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Legislation.gov.uk is the official UK government website providing comprehensive access to UK legislation from 1267 to present. Managed by The National Archives on behalf of HM Government, it serves as an authoritative source for legal professionals, researchers, and the general public. The site offers extensive search and browse capabilities, subscription feeds for new legislation, and links to related parliamentary and government resources. The business model is a public service with no commercial intent, emphasizing transparency and accessibility. Technically, the website employs a traditional web stack with jQuery and Google Tag Manager for analytics, supported by CSS for styling and JavaScript for user interaction and cookie consent management. The site is moderately optimized for performance and mobile use, with good accessibility and SEO practices. However, there is room for improvement in modernizing the tech stack and enhancing security headers. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS and implements cookie consent mechanisms, but lacks explicit security headers and published security policies or incident response contacts. No vulnerabilities or sensitive data exposures were detected in the provided content. The WHOIS data is unavailable, but the domain's .gov.uk status and content strongly indicate legitimacy and trustworthiness. Overall, Legislation.gov.uk presents a secure, professional, and authoritative platform for UK legislation, with strong privacy compliance and user trust. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, publishing a security policy, and implementing vulnerability disclosure mechanisms to further strengthen security posture and transparency.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

    • High

      No SPF record found

      SPF helps prevent email spoofing

      What to do: Add SPF record: "v=spf1 include:_spf.yourmailprovider.com ~all"

  2. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • 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

  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

  4. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • High

      Potential Subdomain Takeover

      Subdomain staging.legislation.gov.uk points to unregistered service djk27kgiy8rmw.cloudfront.net

      What to do: Remove or fix CNAME record to prevent subdomain takeover

      • WSTG-CONF-10
      • NIS2 21(2)(i)
      • IR 2024/2690 12.4: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 12.4: Asset inventory
      • NIST CM-8: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-8: System Component Inventory

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

Keep watching legislation.gov.uk

This scan found 25 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
72
Security headers
60
Email security
40
DNS health
40
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
63

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

Legislation.gov.uk holds a strong market position as the official UK government portal for legislation, operated by The National Archives. Its competitive advantage lies in authoritative, comprehensive, and freely accessible legal content. The target audience includes legal professionals, government officials, researchers, and the general public seeking legislative information. The site supports growth through subscription feeds and integration with parliamentary resources. Partnerships with UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd, Northern Ireland Assembly, and EUR-Lex enhance its ecosystem. The business operates as a government service with no direct revenue streams, focusing on public accessibility and transparency.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with HTTPS enforcement and cookie consent aligned with GDPR. However, the absence of explicit security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options) and lack of published security or incident response policies represent gaps. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were identified. The site does not publish a security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy, limiting external security engagement. Overall, the security culture appears cautious but could benefit from enhanced transparency and technical controls to mitigate emerging threats and improve user trust.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options to harden the site against common web attacks.
  2. Publish a formal security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and facilitate responsible vulnerability reporting.
  3. Develop and publish a vulnerability disclosure program and security.txt file to engage the security community and improve proactive risk management.
  4. Enhance mobile optimization and performance to improve user experience across devices.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and analytics tools to minimize security risks and ensure privacy compliance.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
The National Archives
Description
The official home of UK legislation, revised and as enacted 1267-present. Managed by The National Archives on behalf of HM Government, publishing all UK legislation as part of His Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) and the Office of the King's Printer for Scotland.
Key services
Publishing UK legislation, Providing search and browse tools for legislation, Subscription feeds for new legislation updates
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.7.1, Google Tag Manager, CSS stylesheets, JavaScript for cookie consent and UI
Performance
moderate
Mobile
basic
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of HTTPS implied by domain and Google Tag Manager usage

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is an official UK government portal for legislation.
  2. Content is comprehensive, well-structured, and professionally presented.
  3. Cookie consent and privacy policies are implemented and accessible.
  4. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on the homepage.
  5. No explicit security policy or incident response information published.
  6. WHOIS data is unavailable, likely due to privacy or registry restrictions.
  7. Use of Google Tag Manager for analytics and tracking with user consent.
  8. No advertising or affiliate marketing detected.
  9. No adult or questionable content present.
  10. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a traditional web technology stack centered on jQuery 3.7.1 and Google Tag Manager for analytics and tracking. CSS stylesheets manage presentation, and JavaScript handles UI interactions and cookie consent. The site lacks modern frontend frameworks or CMS indicators, suggesting a custom or legacy platform. Performance is moderate with basic mobile optimization. Accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA roles are present, supporting usability. SEO is supported by meta tags and structured navigation. Opportunities exist to modernize the tech stack, improve performance, and implement advanced security headers to reduce technical debt and enhance resilience.
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. 63/100Medium34 findingsView report
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