Website Security Audit Altrincham

Why practices and clinics ask for a check

Professional firms are increasingly asked about their website by someone else: a cyber insurer at renewal, a lender, or a larger client sending a supplier questionnaire. Questions such as whether two-factor login is enforced, or when the site was last tested, are hard to answer honestly if nobody has looked. An audit gives you a dated document to point to.

Clinics and salons carry a different exposure. Booking and consultation forms often store names, phone numbers and sometimes health notes inside the WordPress database, where anyone with an editor login can read them. Estate agents tend to collect staff accounts over the years, and a negotiator who left long ago may still be able to log in. We work through these points the same way as our website security audit in Manchester, then explain each one in plain terms.

Running the audit with you, remotely or face to face

We ask for a temporary administrator account and read-only hosting access where your host allows it, then do the checks from our side. Nothing heavy is run against your live site without your agreement, and findings are walked through on a video call with whoever manages the site. Some partners prefer to sit down with the report on paper. You can bring it to our M8 office, a drive of roughly 35 to 45 minutes depending on the M60, or a tram ride from Altrincham Interchange, or we can come to you by arrangement.

What the audit covers, stage by stage

In the written report

• A risk-ranked list of findings in plain English
• Plugins and themes with known vulnerabilities or no recent updates
• Every user account with its role, and those we suggest removing
• Header and TLS results with recommended settings
• Where personal data from forms is stored and who can read it
• The outcome of the backup restore test
• An optional fixed quote to carry out the fixes

Gaps we often find on professional and clinic sites in Altrincham

• Former staff with administrator or editor accounts still active.
• Form plugins keeping every enquiry indefinitely, with no retention setting switched on.
• Two-factor login installed but never enforced for administrators.
• An old development copy of the site left publicly reachable on a subdomain.
• Cookie banners that load analytics before the visitor has chosen, which our cookie consent setup can correct.
• No HSTS header, even though the site already runs on HTTPS.

An audit is not a clean-up. If we see signs the site has already been breached, we stop and recommend malware removal instead. Fixing the findings and keeping them fixed afterwards is what WordPress maintenance is for.

Frequently asked questions

Security audits for Sale, Stretford and Chorlton businesses

Firms nearer the city have their own pages for a website security audit in Sale, Stretford and Chorlton, and the complete service is described on our main security audit page. To see what else we do for Altrincham businesses, visit the local print and signage hub.

If you would like your site’s weak points set out clearly in writing, request an audit quote, call our team on 0161 315 1151 or WhatsApp the web address to 07737 902425.