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Security report for mysociety.org

mySociety · Non-profit · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

mySociety is a UK-based not-for-profit social enterprise focused on empowering citizens through digital technologies in the areas of democracy, transparency, and community engagement. With over 20 years of experience and a presence in more than 40 countries, it operates a suite of popular civic technology services and provides commercial services through its subsidiary SocietyWorks to fund its charitable mission. The website reflects a mature organization with a clear mission and strong market position in the civic tech sector. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern web technologies including jQuery, Google Analytics with IP anonymization, and social media integrations. The site is well-structured, mobile-optimized, and SEO-friendly, though performance is moderate. Security posture is good with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities, but could be improved by adding security headers and explicit cookie consent mechanisms. Security-wise, the organization demonstrates good practices such as anonymizing analytics data and avoiding exposed sensitive information. However, the lack of visible security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms suggests room for improvement in transparency and readiness. The absence of WHOIS data limits domain trust verification but is mitigated by strong business signals on the site. Overall, mySociety presents a trustworthy, professional, and well-maintained online presence with minor gaps in privacy compliance and security transparency. Strategic improvements in cookie consent, security headers, and incident response visibility would enhance its security posture and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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 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 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 mysociety.org

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.

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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
85
Security headers
15
Email security
85
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
70

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

mySociety holds a strong position in the civic technology market as a pioneering non-profit with a diversified business model combining charitable activities and commercial services via SocietyWorks. Its key competitive advantages include a long operational history, a broad international footprint, and a portfolio of widely used civic tools. Revenue streams likely include donations, grants, and commercial contracts with local governments. The target customers span individual citizens, journalists, activists, and public sector bodies. The organization shows growth through research initiatives and global partnerships, supported by a robust digital presence and active social media engagement. Strategic observations highlight the importance of maintaining transparency, expanding data services, and enhancing security and privacy compliance to sustain trust and market leadership.

Security posture

The security maturity of mySociety's website is moderate to good. HTTPS is properly implemented with no visible SSL issues. Analytics are configured with IP anonymization, reducing privacy risks. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Content-Type-Options is a notable gap. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML source. The site lacks explicit security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms, which are important for transparency and rapid response to threats. GDPR compliance is partially demonstrated through a comprehensive privacy policy but lacks a cookie consent mechanism. Overall, the security posture is solid but could be enhanced by addressing these transparency and technical header gaps.

Recommendations

  1. Implement a clear cookie consent banner and cookie policy page to improve privacy compliance and user trust.
  2. Publish detailed security policies and incident response contacts to enhance transparency and preparedness.
  3. Add security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to strengthen defense-in-depth.
  4. Consider creating a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Improve WHOIS data availability or transparency to increase domain trustworthiness and reduce suspicion.

Contact details published on the site

Legal name
mySociety
Registration number
03277032
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
mySociety
Description
mySociety is a not-for-profit social enterprise, based in the UK but working with partners internationally. They build and share digital technologies that help people be active citizens, across the areas of Democracy, Transparency, and Community.
Key services
Transparency tools, Democracy tools, Community tools, Research and data portals, Local government services via SocietyWorks
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Google Analytics, Facebook SDK, Twitter Widgets, Google Tag Manager
Frameworks
WordPress theme (mysociety-new)
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • IP anonymization in Google Analytics
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No vulnerable libraries detected

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel (via Facebook SDK)
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and clear navigation
  2. No explicit cookie consent mechanism detected despite use of cookies and tracking
  3. WHOIS data is unavailable, limiting domain trust verification
  4. Strong presence of trust signals including charity registration and subsidiary information
  5. Use of modern web technologies and analytics with privacy-conscious settings
  6. No visible security headers detected in HTML source
  7. No contact phone numbers or emails explicitly listed on homepage; contact form present
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a WordPress CMS platform using a custom theme 'mysociety-new' and includes common JavaScript libraries such as jQuery. It integrates third-party services including Google Analytics (with anonymized IP), Google Tag Manager, Facebook SDK, and Twitter widgets for social media functionality. The site uses responsive design techniques and includes accessibility features such as ARIA labels and screen-reader text. Performance is moderate, likely due to multiple external resource calls. No outdated or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML source. The site lacks some modern security headers which could be added to improve security posture. Overall, the technical infrastructure is stable and modern but could benefit from performance optimizations and enhanced security configurations.
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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