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Security report for pta.gov.pk

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority · Telecommunications · Pakistan

High risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

48/100

Risk levelHigh

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

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is the official government regulatory body overseeing the telecommunication sector in Pakistan. The website serves as a comprehensive portal offering licensing information, consumer protection services, cyber security strategies, and digital inclusion initiatives. It targets telecom industry stakeholders, consumers, and government entities within Pakistan. The site is professionally designed with good content quality, clear navigation, and accessibility features, reflecting a mature digital presence for a government entity. Technically, the site uses modern front-end frameworks such as Bootstrap and Foundation, along with jQuery and Font Awesome, but suffers from poor SSL/TLS implementation with no valid certificate and no enabled TLS protocols, which significantly impacts security posture. Security headers are well configured, but lack of HTTPS and modern TLS protocols is a critical weakness. Privacy compliance is basic with a privacy policy and terms of use present but no cookie consent mechanism or GDPR compliance indicators. Contact information including phone and physical address is clearly provided, along with official social media links. Overall, the site is trustworthy and authoritative but requires urgent improvements in SSL/TLS security to protect user data and enhance trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
18/ 100 · Critical
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

5 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

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • 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

  2. 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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  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 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 pta.gov.pk

This scan found 14 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

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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
0
Security headers
70
Email security
50
DNS health
50
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
18
Average
48

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

PTA holds a strong market position as the national telecom regulator in Pakistan, providing essential services such as licensing, spectrum auctions, consumer complaint management, and cyber security frameworks. Its business model is government regulatory authority focused on compliance enforcement and sector development. The website reflects a large organization with extensive content covering multiple sectors including industry support, consumer services, media, legislation, and research. The presence of multiple official subdomains for e-services, complaints, IP registration, and device registration indicates a broad service ecosystem. The site’s digital maturity is moderate with room for improvement in security and privacy compliance. PTA’s partnerships and collaborations in digital gender inclusion and international cooperation further strengthen its strategic positioning.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with strong use of security headers such as X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-XSS-Protection. However, the absence of a valid SSL certificate and lack of HTTPS enforcement is a critical vulnerability that undermines user trust and data security. No modern TLS protocols are enabled, and there is no HSTS preload or DNSSEC configuration. The site uses CSRF tokens in forms, indicating awareness of common web security practices. There is no visible incident response or vulnerability disclosure information, which limits transparency and readiness for security incidents. Overall, the security posture is compromised by fundamental SSL/TLS issues despite good header configurations.

Recommendations

  1. Obtain and deploy a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS and protect data in transit.
  2. Enable TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 protocols and disable insecure protocols to improve cryptographic security.
  3. Implement HSTS with includeSubDomains and preload to enforce secure connections.
  4. Configure DNSSEC and CAA records to enhance DNS security and certificate issuance control.
  5. Publish a security.txt file and vulnerability disclosure policy to improve transparency and incident response.
  6. Add a cookie consent mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and improve user trust.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a combination of Bootstrap and Foundation CSS frameworks, jQuery libraries, and Font Awesome icons to deliver a responsive and accessible user interface. Google Fonts and Cycle2 jQuery plugin are used for typography and slideshow features respectively. The site includes accessibility features such as font resizing, speech synthesis controls, and contrast options. Performance data is unavailable, but the presence of multiple CSS and JS resources suggests moderate loading times. The site is mobile optimized and SEO basics are implemented with meta tags and structured navigation. However, the lack of valid SSL/TLS and modern security protocols represents a significant technical risk. The hosting provider is not explicitly identified. Overall, the technical infrastructure is solid but requires modernization in security and performance monitoring.
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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