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Security report for gov.de

Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung · Government · Germany

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, Email security and 2 other checks.

Security score

53/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The website digitale-verwaltung.de is an official digital administration portal operated by the Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung, Germany's Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernization. It serves as a central information hub for the Digital Dachmarke initiative, which aims to provide a unified branding system for government digital services across federal, state, and municipal levels. The site targets citizens, government entities, and stakeholders involved in digital public services, offering detailed information, contact points, and resources to support the initiative. Technically, the site is built using the Government Site Builder CMS, employs modern web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, and integrates accessibility tools such as ReadSpeaker. Hosting is provided via a reputable provider with nameservers indicating European hosting. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, with structured data enhancing search engine understanding. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and incorporates accessibility and privacy best practices. However, it lacks explicit security policy documentation, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms. No security headers were detected in the provided data, and no cookie consent mechanism was observed despite GDPR applicability. The WHOIS data aligns with the official government use, indicating a legitimate and trustworthy domain. Overall, the website presents a professional, trustworthy, and well-maintained digital government service portal with minor gaps in explicit security and privacy disclosures. Strategic improvements in these areas would enhance user trust and compliance posture.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
28/ 100 · High
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

9 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. GDPR outside view

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

    • Critical

      EU business without adequate privacy measures

      EU businesses are subject to strict GDPR requirements

      What to do: Implement comprehensive GDPR compliance including privacy policy, cookie consent, and data protection measures

  2. 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

  3. 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • 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';…

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching gov.de

This scan found 30 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
77
Security headers
15
Email security
40
DNS health
55
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
28
Average
53

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 gov.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
22
Employees
0
Customers
0
Third parties
22
Weak passwords
32%

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 gov.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

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

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Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

The portal is positioned as a key digital government platform in Germany, supporting the Digital Dachmarke branding initiative. It leverages partnerships with federal and state entities and the DigitalService GmbH for operational support. The business model is non-commercial, focused on public service delivery and digital transformation facilitation. The site’s ecosystem includes links to multiple government and EU digital initiatives, indicating a broad partnership network. The platform’s growth is driven by government mandates and user adoption of digital public services. Its competitive advantage lies in official backing, comprehensive content, and integration with national digital strategies.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS and no visible exposure of sensitive data. Accessibility and privacy considerations are evident, including ARIA roles and ReadSpeaker integration. However, the absence of published security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure channels represents gaps in transparency and readiness. No security headers were identified, which could improve protection against common web attacks. The site does not display cookie consent mechanisms, which may be a compliance risk under GDPR. Overall, the security maturity is good but could benefit from enhanced documentation and technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and user guidance.
  2. Provide clear incident response contact information, including security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  3. Implement and display a cookie consent mechanism to comply with GDPR requirements.
  4. Add security HTTP headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  5. Establish a vulnerability disclosure program or publish a security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung
Description
Die digitale Dachmarke für Deutschland: Bessere Erkennbarkeit staatlicher Angebote von Bund, Ländern, Kommunen im Internet durch einheitliche Vertrauensanker.
Key services
Information on digital administration initiatives, Digital Dachmarke branding system, Contact and support for digital government services
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Government Site Builder CMS, ReadSpeaker accessibility tool
Frameworks
Government Site Builder
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of ARIA roles and accessibility features
  • No suspicious scripts detected

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is an official German government digital administration portal.
  2. Content is comprehensive and well-structured with clear navigation.
  3. Accessibility features like ReadSpeaker and ARIA roles are implemented.
  4. No signs of malicious or suspicious content.
  5. No explicit privacy or security policy pages found on the main page but linked in footer.
  6. No cookie consent banner detected despite GDPR relevance.
  7. No visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information.
  8. WHOIS data consistent with hosting and domain use.
  9. Social media presence on Twitter and YouTube linked.
  10. No advertising or tracking networks detected beyond Matomo analytics.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a specialized government CMS (Government Site Builder) tailored for federal digital services, ensuring compliance with accessibility and design standards. The tech stack is modern and includes accessibility tools like ReadSpeaker. Hosting is stable and European-based, supporting performance and data sovereignty. The site is mobile-optimized and SEO-friendly with structured data (JSON-LD) for enhanced search visibility. No outdated or vulnerable libraries were detected. Performance is moderate, with potential for optimization in loading speed. The site architecture supports clear navigation and user experience, suitable for a large government audience.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 53/100Medium37 findingsView report
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