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Security report for looklocal.org.uk

Look Local Newspaper · Media · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in DNS health, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

65/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Look Local Newspaper is a small, independently owned local newspaper serving North Sheffield and surrounding areas since 1998. It distributes weekly print editions to over 20,000 homes and drop-off points, complemented by an online edition with a modest readership. The business focuses on community news, local events, and advertising services for local businesses, positioning itself as a trusted and established media source within its community. The website is hosted on the Google Sites platform, leveraging Google Fonts and APIs, providing a functional and moderately optimized user experience with good mobile responsiveness. However, the site lacks comprehensive privacy and terms of service policies, which are important for compliance and user trust. Security posture is basic with HTTPS enabled but missing security headers and no visible advanced security measures. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules violation, which raises some concerns about domain registration legitimacy, although the website content appears genuine and consistent with the business claims. Overall, the site is functional and trustworthy for its intended audience but would benefit from improved privacy compliance and security enhancements.

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

6 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. DNS health

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

    • Critical

      DNS Resolution Failed

      Unable to resolve domain A records

      What to do: Verify domain is properly configured and not expired

  2. 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

  3. 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 Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

    • High

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google APIs

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

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

Keep watching looklocal.org.uk

This scan found 22 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

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

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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
65
Email security
85
DNS health
30
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
50
Average
65

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 media sector as a local newspaper with a focus on community engagement and advertising revenue from local businesses. Its competitive advantage lies in its long-standing presence since 1998 and deep local roots, with staff living and working in the community. The business model is primarily based on print distribution and advertising, supplemented by an online edition. The target customers are local residents and businesses in North Sheffield and nearby areas. The website's partnership with issuu.com for archive issues indicates a digital content distribution strategy. Growth indicators include a stable distribution network and consistent readership. The company maintains direct contact channels and emphasizes local business relationships, reinforcing its community-centric approach.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic security posture with HTTPS enabled, ensuring encrypted communications. However, the absence of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options suggests room for improvement in mitigating common web vulnerabilities. No evidence of vulnerable libraries or exposed sensitive data was found. The lack of a privacy policy and incident response information indicates gaps in compliance and preparedness. The WHOIS data anomaly introduces uncertainty about domain legitimacy, which could impact trust. Overall, the security maturity is low to moderate, suitable for a small local business but requiring enhancements to meet higher compliance and security standards.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a comprehensive privacy policy to improve GDPR compliance and user trust.
  2. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to enhance protection against common attacks.
  3. Investigate and resolve the domain WHOIS registration issue to ensure domain legitimacy and transparency.
  4. Introduce terms of service and incident response contact information to strengthen legal and security posture.
  5. Regularly review and update website security practices, including monitoring for vulnerable libraries and securing any forms or data collection mechanisms.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Look Local Newspaper
Description
Look Local is a local newspaper established in 1998, delivering weekly to over 20,000 homes and drop-off points in North Sheffield and surrounding areas. It offers both print and online editions and focuses on local community news, events, and advertising.
Key services
Weekly newspaper distribution, Online edition access, Advertising services for local businesses
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Sites, Google Fonts, Google APIs, JavaScript
Platforms
Google Sites platform
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
70/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF detected.
  2. Content is focused on local newspaper services for North Sheffield.
  3. No privacy policy or terms of service pages found.
  4. Contact information including email, phone, and physical address is clearly provided in the footer.
  5. Website is hosted on Google Sites platform with Google Fonts and APIs.
  6. No security headers detected in the provided data.
  7. No analytics or tracking scripts explicitly detected.
  8. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules violation error.
  9. No social media links found on the site.
  10. No forms detected on the homepage or main navigation pages.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Google Sites platform, utilizing Google Fonts and Google APIs for functionality and styling. The site loads moderately fast and is mobile responsive, providing a good user experience on various devices. SEO optimization is basic with proper meta tags and Open Graph tags present but no advanced SEO features detected. Accessibility features are minimal but present. The technical infrastructure is stable but limited by the constraints of the Google Sites platform, which may restrict customization and advanced security implementations. Hosting by Google ensures reliable uptime and SSL support. There is no evidence of third-party analytics or tracking services, indicating minimal user tracking.
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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