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Security report for district09.be

District09 · Government · Belgium

Low risk. No critical or high findings.

Security score

85/100

Risk levelLow

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

District09 is a digital partner organization dedicated to supporting the city of Ghent and its partner organizations in digital and AI transformation initiatives. Established in 2020, it plays a pivotal role in enabling smart city services and ensuring digital availability for the city. The website reflects a professional and consistent brand presence, targeting government entities and local stakeholders. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 11, leveraging modern web technologies and analytics tools such as Google Tag Manager and Cookiebot for privacy compliance. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and domain transfer protections, though DNSSEC is not enabled and some security headers are missing. Privacy compliance is well addressed with clear privacy and cookie policies, including consent mechanisms. Contact information is transparent and easily accessible, enhancing business credibility.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
83/ 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

No critical or high findings. These medium findings are worth fixing next.

  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.

    • Medium

      Missing X-XSS-Protection header

      Legacy XSS protection (deprecated but still recommended)

      What to do: Add "X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block"

    • Medium

      Missing Permissions-Policy header

      Controls browser features and APIs

      What to do: Implement a Permissions-Policy to restrict feature access

      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Permissions-Policy: accelerometer=(), autoplay=(), camera=(), cross-origin-isolated=(),…

  2. GDPR outside view

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

    • Medium

      Privacy policy may not be GDPR compliant

      Privacy policy lacks explicit GDPR compliance elements

      What to do: Update privacy policy to explicitly address GDPR requirements and user rights

  3. 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.

    • Medium

      No MTA-STS Policy

      MTA-STS enforces TLS for email delivery

      What to do: Implement MTA-STS to prevent downgrade attacks

  4. 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.

    • Medium

      SSL Certificate Expires Within 90 Days

      SSL certificate expires in 56 days

      What to do: Plan SSL certificate renewal

Keep watching district09.be

This scan found 16 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.

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Full report

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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
95
Security headers
70
Email security
80
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
83
Average
85

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

District09 holds a strategic position as the digital enabler for Ghent's municipal services, focusing on AI and digital transformation. Its business model centers on public sector partnerships and service provision rather than commercial sales. The organization benefits from strong trust signals such as official city affiliation and participation in recognized challenges like the Bloomberg Mayors Challenge. The website's content and linked domains reinforce its government and technology sector focus. The presence of a responsible disclosure page indicates a mature security culture. Growth indicators include active news updates and engagement with innovative projects. The partnership ecosystem includes the city of Ghent and related open data portals.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to good security maturity level. HTTPS is enforced, and domain registration includes clientTransferProhibited status to prevent unauthorized transfers. Cookie consent is managed via Cookiebot, supporting GDPR compliance. However, DNSSEC is not enabled, which is a recommended enhancement for DNS security. No explicit security policy or incident response contacts are published, which could be improved to enhance transparency and readiness. The use of third-party scripts like Google Tag Manager and Cookiebot is standard but requires ongoing monitoring for vulnerabilities. Overall, the security posture is adequate for a government partner site but could benefit from additional hardening and documentation.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to improve DNS security and integrity.
  2. Publish a formal security policy and incident response contact information on the website.
  3. Implement additional HTTP security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance transparency by providing data retention policies and detailed privacy compliance documentation.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
District09
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
District09
Description
District09 is the digital partner for the city of Ghent and partner organizations, guiding and supporting them in digital and AI transformation. They provide smart, always available digital services for the city.
Key services
Digital transformation guidance, AI transformation support, Smart city digital services
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 11, Google Tag Manager, Cookiebot, Google Fonts
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • ClientTransferProhibited domain status
  • Cookie consent mechanism implemented

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Cookiebot
Marketing tools
Cookiebot
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 and not blocked by WAF.
  2. Content is professionally presented in Dutch language.
  3. Clear navigation with multiple sections about services, news, vacancies, and contact.
  4. Cookie consent implemented via Cookiebot.
  5. No explicit security policy or incident response contact found.
  6. WHOIS data supports legitimacy and transparency.
  7. No DNSSEC configured, which is a minor security gap.
  8. Use of modern CMS Drupal 11 and Google Tag Manager for analytics.
  9. Social media presence on Facebook and LinkedIn.
  10. Contact information clearly displayed in footer.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 11, a modern and widely supported CMS, indicating a current technology stack. It uses Google Fonts for typography and Google Tag Manager for analytics and marketing tags, integrated with Cookiebot for cookie consent management. Hosting is provided by Combell NV, a reputable Belgian hosting provider. The site is mobile optimized and accessible, with good SEO practices including canonical links and hreflang tags. Performance is moderate, with asynchronous loading of scripts and optimized images. No major technical debt or deprecated technologies were detected. Opportunities exist to improve security headers and enable DNSSEC for enhanced domain 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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