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Security report for water.org.uk

Water UK · Energy · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

68/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Water UK is the leading trade association representing the water industry in the United Kingdom. The organization works with water companies to ensure customers receive high-quality tap water at reasonable prices while protecting and improving the environment. Their services include industry campaigns, technical guidance, customer information, and policy advocacy. The website reflects a professional and well-structured digital presence targeting industry stakeholders, customers, developers, and the general public interested in water supply and wastewater management. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10 CMS and leverages modern web technologies including Google Tag Manager and Microsoft Clarity for analytics and user experience insights. The site is mobile-optimized, accessible, and demonstrates good SEO practices. Hosting appears to be behind Cloudflare, providing performance and security benefits. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, uses security headers, and implements a cookie consent mechanism compliant with GDPR. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. However, explicit security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are not present, representing areas for improvement. Overall, the website is trustworthy, professional, and well-maintained, though the WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules errors, which slightly impacts domain legitimacy assessment. Strategic recommendations include publishing detailed security policies, adding vulnerability disclosure information, and enhancing security contact 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

4 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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
    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

  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 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 water.org.uk

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

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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
47
Security headers
65
Email security
65
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
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

Water UK occupies a strong market position as the primary trade association for the UK water sector, serving as a central body for industry coordination, advocacy, and standards. Their business model focuses on representing member companies, providing technical and customer guidance, and running public campaigns to promote sustainable water use. The organization targets water companies, developers, contractors, and consumers. The presence of campaigns like 'Fats Block Pipes' and 'Bin The Wipe' indicates active engagement in environmental and operational issues. The company is registered in England and Wales with a clear physical address, reinforcing credibility. The website's content and structure suggest a medium-sized organization with a focus on transparency and public engagement.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of nonce-based Content Security Policy elements, and a cookie consent banner supporting GDPR compliance. No direct contact emails or phone numbers for security or incident response were found, indicating a gap in transparency for security communications. The absence of a published security policy or vulnerability disclosure program limits the organization's ability to communicate security readiness and responsiveness. No known vulnerabilities or outdated libraries were detected in the provided content. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced by formalizing security policies and incident response channels.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and compliance.
  2. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file.
  3. Provide clear security incident contact information (e.g., security@water.org.uk).
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and analytics tools to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance transparency around data retention policies and user privacy controls.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Water UK
Registration number
03539600
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Water UK
Description
We work with companies to help ensure that customers receive high quality tap water at a reasonable price and that our environment is protected and improved
Key services
Industry campaigns, Technical guidance, Customer information, Policy and advocacy
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity, AddToAny sharing, Cloudflare (implied by challenge script)
Frameworks
Drupal CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner with preferences
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of nonce for inline scripts

Analytics and tracking

Services
Microsoft Clarity, Google Analytics (via GTM, though tagId empty)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Microsoft Clarity
Marketing tools
AddToAny sharing
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and navigation
  2. No signs of phishing or malware
  3. Professional trade association site with clear business info
  4. Cookie consent and privacy policies are implemented
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found in HTML
  6. WHOIS data is unavailable due to domain naming rules error
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS, indicating a current technology stack. It uses Google Tag Manager and Microsoft Clarity for analytics and user behavior tracking, integrated with a cookie consent mechanism for privacy compliance. The site is hosted behind Cloudflare, providing CDN and security benefits. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and accessibility features. The site uses semantic HTML and includes meta tags for SEO. There is no evidence of deprecated or vulnerable libraries in the HTML content. Opportunities exist to improve technical documentation of security and privacy practices and to enhance performance monitoring.
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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