Skip to main content

Security report for restaurantoftheyear.ie

Business Post Group · Hospitality · Ireland

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

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The website restaurantoftheyear.ie serves as the official platform for the Food & Wine Restaurant of the Year Awards, a premier annual event recognizing excellence in Irish food, drink, and hospitality. Operated under the Business Post Group, the site provides event details, ticket sales, and sponsor information, targeting industry professionals and enthusiasts within Ireland's hospitality sector. The business model centers on event organization, sponsorship, and ticketing, positioning itself as a key player in the Irish food and drink awards market. Technically, the website is built on WordPress using the Divi theme, WooCommerce for e-commerce functionality, and Tickera for ticket management. Hosting is provided by Hosting Ireland with Cloudflare DNS services, ensuring reliable infrastructure. The site demonstrates good SEO practices, mobile optimization, and a professional design, though accessibility features are basic. Performance is moderate, with room for improvement in technical optimization. From a security perspective, the site employs HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate, but lacks advanced security headers such as CSP or HSTS. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a cookie consent mechanism and security policy pages indicates partial privacy compliance. The WHOIS data aligns with the business's operational timeline and legitimacy, showing consistent registration details without privacy protection. Overall, restaurantoftheyear.ie is a credible and professionally maintained event website with solid business credibility and technical foundation. To enhance security posture and privacy compliance, the site should implement security headers, cookie consent mechanisms, and publish clear security and incident response policies. These improvements will strengthen trust and regulatory adherence, supporting the site's continued success in the hospitality awards market.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
33/ 100 · High
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. GDPR outside view

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

    • Critical

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

    • 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

  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
    • 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';…

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

Keep watching restaurantoftheyear.ie

This scan found 24 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.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. The full timeline opens with your unlock code.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
35
Email security
70
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
33
Average
61

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 Food & Wine Restaurant of the Year Awards website is strategically positioned as a leading event within Ireland's hospitality industry, leveraging the Business Post Group's media influence. Its competitive advantage lies in its established brand recognition, annual sellout events, and strong sponsor partnerships including notable brands like Remy Martin and OpenTable. Revenue streams primarily derive from ticket sales and sponsorship deals. The target customer segments include restaurateurs, hospitality professionals, sponsors, and food enthusiasts. Growth indicators include consistent event scheduling, expanding sponsor base, and active promotion through media channels. The partnership ecosystem is robust, involving media, hospitality suppliers, and event venues. Operationally, the company maintains a focused event-driven business model with digital ticketing and marketing capabilities, positioning it well for sustained market presence.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with HTTPS enforced and no visible exposure of sensitive data. However, the lack of security headers such as Content Security Policy, X-Frame-Options, and HSTS reduces its defense-in-depth posture. No explicit incident response or security policy information is published, indicating a gap in transparency and preparedness. GDPR compliance is partially addressed through a privacy policy, but the absence of a cookie consent mechanism and security disclosures suggests incomplete adherence. No vulnerable libraries or outdated components were detected in the provided HTML. The security culture appears nascent, with room for improvement in formalizing policies and enhancing technical controls to mitigate risks and build stakeholder trust.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including CSP, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Deploy a cookie consent banner to comply with GDPR and improve user privacy transparency.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response plan accessible to users and partners.
  4. Regularly audit and update all plugins and themes to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance accessibility features to improve compliance and user experience for all visitors.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Business Post Group
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Business Post Group
Description
The Food & Wine Restaurant of the Year Awards recognise the very best in Irish food, drink and hospitality. Held annually in late autumn, the sellout ceremony sees hundreds of guests gather to network, share industry knowledge and to celebrate success.
Key services
Annual awards event, Networking opportunities, Industry recognition, Ticket sales
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, WooCommerce, Divi Theme, Tickera plugin, Cloudflare DNS
Frameworks
WooCommerce
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Cloudflare DNS

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional event site for Irish food and drink awards.
  2. Uses WordPress with WooCommerce and Tickera for ticket sales.
  3. No visible security headers configured.
  4. No cookie consent banner detected despite GDPR relevance.
  5. Contact information is clearly provided in footer.
  6. No terms of service or security policy pages found.
  7. Sponsors and partners are prominently displayed.
  8. No adult or questionable content detected.
  9. Good SEO metadata and structured data present.
  10. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern WordPress infrastructure utilizing the Divi theme and WooCommerce for e-commerce capabilities, supplemented by the Tickera plugin for ticketing. Hosting is managed by Hosting Ireland with Cloudflare DNS, providing reliable and scalable infrastructure. The site includes optimized fonts from Google Fonts and integrates Google Analytics for traffic monitoring. Performance is moderate with some animations and video content that may impact load times. SEO is well addressed through Yoast SEO plugin with structured data and Open Graph metadata. Accessibility is basic, with potential for improvement. The technical stack is current but would benefit from enhanced security configurations and performance tuning to reduce technical debt and improve 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

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with restaurantoftheyear.ie. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review restaurantoftheyear.ie.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.