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Security report for baltimorecity.gov

City of Baltimore · Government · United States

Low risk. 3 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

76/100

Risk levelLow

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

The City of Baltimore's official website serves as a comprehensive digital portal for residents, businesses, and visitors, providing access to government services, news, events, and resources. It positions itself as the authoritative source for municipal information and public engagement in Baltimore, Maryland. The site leverages a mature technical infrastructure based on Drupal 7 CMS, enhanced with modern web technologies such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and reCAPTCHA for security. The design is professional and consistent with government branding, offering good user experience and mobile optimization. From a security perspective, the website enforces HTTPS and employs CAPTCHA on its contact forms, demonstrating a commitment to secure user interactions. However, the absence of key security headers and a cookie consent mechanism indicates areas for improvement in compliance and defense-in-depth strategies. The lack of publicly available WHOIS data reduces transparency but does not detract significantly from the site's legitimacy given its .gov domain and official content. Overall, the website is a reliable and trustworthy government resource with solid technical foundations and good content quality. Strategic enhancements in security headers, privacy compliance, and WHOIS transparency would further strengthen 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

3 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 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 baltimorecity.gov

This scan found 19 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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  • 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
55
Email security
85
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
76

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention baltimorecity.gov, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
472
Employees
13
Customers
288
Third parties
171
Weak passwords
6%

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for baltimorecity.gov.

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Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

Baltimore City's website is a critical government asset that supports a wide range of public services including 311 service requests, payments, mayoral communications, and public health information. Its market position as the official city portal ensures high traffic and importance in local governance. The business model is service-oriented, focusing on information dissemination and citizen engagement rather than revenue generation. The site integrates with multiple city subdomains and partner services, creating an ecosystem that supports municipal operations. Growth indicators include active news updates, event promotion, and digital inclusion initiatives. The partnership ecosystem includes media outlets and digital service providers like GovDelivery. The site reflects a mature operational model with a focus on accessibility and public trust.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to strong security posture with mandatory HTTPS and use of Google reCAPTCHA to prevent spam and automated abuse. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security suggests potential gaps in defense against clickjacking, MIME sniffing, and other web-based attacks. The lack of a published security policy or incident response contact limits transparency and preparedness communication. Privacy compliance is partial, with a privacy policy present but no cookie consent mechanism despite tracking technologies. Overall, the site is secure for general public use but would benefit from enhanced security controls and compliance measures.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  2. Deploy a cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and inform users about tracking.
  3. Publish a clear security policy and incident response contact information to improve transparency and trust.
  4. Regularly update Drupal core and contributed modules to mitigate known vulnerabilities and maintain security.
  5. Enhance accessibility features to meet or exceed WCAG 2.1 standards for inclusive user experience.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
City of Baltimore
Description
The official website of Charm City, Baltimore, Maryland. Provides government services, news, events, and resources for residents and visitors.
Key services
311 Services, Payments, Mayor's Office information, News and Events, Directory of city departments and offices, Public resources and alerts
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 7, jQuery 1.7, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google reCAPTCHA, Font Awesome, Typekit Fonts, Foundation Framework
Frameworks
Drupal, Foundation
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA on contact form
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure form submission with CAPTCHA

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Marketing tools
GovDelivery
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official government website for Baltimore City with comprehensive public service information.
  2. Uses Drupal 7 CMS with multiple modern web technologies and analytics.
  3. No evidence of security blocking or WAF challenges.
  4. WHOIS data is missing or unavailable, limiting domain registration trust analysis.
  5. Privacy and terms of use policies are present and accessible.
  6. Contact information is clearly provided including phone, address, and contact form with CAPTCHA.
  7. No cookie consent mechanism detected despite use of tracking scripts.
  8. Website content is safe and suitable for general audiences.
  9. Good technical implementation with room for security header improvements.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 7, a widely used CMS for government sites, supplemented by jQuery 1.7 and the Foundation front-end framework. It uses Google Analytics and Tag Manager for user behavior tracking and performance monitoring. The site loads multiple external scripts asynchronously to optimize performance. Font resources are served via Adobe Typekit, and icons are provided by Font Awesome. The site is mobile responsive with a clear navigation structure and semantic HTML. Performance is moderate, with potential improvements in caching and resource optimization. The technical stack is stable but Drupal 7 is approaching end-of-life, suggesting a future upgrade path to maintain security and functionality.
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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