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Security report for bcn.cat

Ajuntament de Barcelona · Government · Spain

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Email security and Security headers.

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The website www.barcelona.cat serves as the official digital portal for the Ajuntament de Barcelona, providing comprehensive information and services for residents and visitors of Barcelona city. It offers a wide range of resources including news, cultural events, public services, transport information, and business support, positioning itself as a key government communication channel. The site is well-branded, professionally designed, and targets a broad audience interested in city life and governance. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 10, leveraging modern web technologies such as Bootstrap for responsive design, and integrates multiple analytics platforms including Google Analytics, Matomo, and Plausible. Cookiebot is used for cookie consent management, ensuring GDPR compliance. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, contributing to a positive user experience. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS, uses security headers, and implements anti-CSRF tokens. However, explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not published, and no security.txt file is found. The WHOIS data is unavailable, likely due to registry policies, but the domain and content strongly indicate legitimacy. Overall, the security posture is solid but could benefit from enhanced transparency and formalized vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. The overall risk assessment is low, with the site representing a trustworthy government resource. Strategic recommendations include publishing detailed security and incident response policies, adding a security.txt file, and maintaining vigilance on third-party scripts. These steps will further strengthen trust and compliance in the evolving regulatory landscape.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
95/ 100 · Low
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. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

    • High

      No SPF record found

      SPF helps prevent email spoofing

      What to do: Add SPF record: "v=spf1 include:_spf.yourmailprovider.com ~all"

  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';…

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Keep watching bcn.cat

This scan found 21 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
90
Security headers
40
Email security
40
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
95
Average
71

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 Ajuntament de Barcelona operates as a large government entity providing essential public services and information to the city's population and visitors. Its market position is that of an authoritative source for municipal information and services. The business model is non-commercial, focused on public administration and citizen engagement. Revenue streams are not applicable, but the site supports city initiatives and public communication. The partnership ecosystem includes related city subdomains and official communication platforms. Growth indicators include continuous content updates and integration of digital services. Strategic observations highlight the importance of maintaining high trust and compliance standards given the public sector nature.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of security headers, and cookie consent mechanisms aligned with GDPR. Anti-CSRF tokens and session management cookies indicate attention to secure session handling. However, the absence of published security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure channels represents a compliance gap. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the analysis. The site should enhance transparency by publishing security documentation and providing clear channels for reporting security incidents to align with best practices and regulatory expectations.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page detailing security practices and compliance.
  2. Implement and publish a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability disclosures.
  3. Provide clear incident response contact information, such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and analytics tools to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Ensure all cookies have Secure and HttpOnly flags and review cookie retention policies for minimization.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Ajuntament de Barcelona
Description
Informació pràctica per viure a la ciutat de Barcelona: notícies, activitats, serveis, feina, transport, empresa, oci, plànol, innovació i molt més.
Key services
City news and updates, Event and cultural activities information, Public services and administrative procedures, Transport and mobility information, Business and employment resources, City maps and guides
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Bootstrap 4.2.1, Cookiebot for cookie consent, Matomo analytics, Plausible analytics, JavaScript libraries for UI and tracking
Frameworks
Drupal
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent with opt-in/out
  • Use of anti-CSRF tokens (XSRF-TOKEN cookie)
  • Session management cookies with HttpOnly and Secure flags (implied)

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Matomo, Plausible
Tracking level
extensive
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ads, Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads, YouTube Ads
Tracking pixels
Matomo, Plausible, Cookiebot, TikTok tracking, Facebook Pixel, Adobe tracking
Marketing tools
Cookiebot, Matomo, Plausible
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official government website for Barcelona city
  2. Comprehensive cookie consent and privacy compliance
  3. Use of multiple analytics and tracking services with consent
  4. No visible contact emails or phone numbers on main page
  5. No explicit security or incident response policies published
  6. WHOIS data unavailable, likely due to registry restrictions
  7. High-quality design and user experience
  8. Mobile optimized and accessible
  9. No WAF or blocking detected
Technical notes

Notes

The site is built on Drupal 10 CMS, a robust and widely used platform for government websites, ensuring scalability and security. It uses Bootstrap 4.2.1 for responsive design, supporting good mobile optimization. Analytics are implemented via multiple platforms including Google Analytics, Matomo, and Plausible, providing comprehensive visitor insights. Cookiebot manages cookie consent, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations. The site loads moderately fast, with well-structured HTML and CSS. Accessibility features such as ARIA labels and keyboard navigation aids are present. Technical risks include reliance on multiple third-party scripts which require ongoing security monitoring. Hosting provider details are not explicit but Cloudflare services appear to be used for CDN and security.
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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