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Security report for hawaii.gov

State of Hawaiʻi · Government · United States

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

61/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The website portal.ehawaii.gov serves as the official digital gateway for the State of Hawaiʻi, providing comprehensive resources and services for government entities, residents, businesses, and visitors. It functions as a centralized hub for accessing government departments, online services such as business registration and driver records, and up-to-date news and alerts. The site is positioned as a trusted and authoritative source, reinforced by consistent branding with the state seal and multiple industry awards. From a technical perspective, the site employs modern web technologies including Google Analytics for traffic analysis, Freshchat for user engagement, and Siteimprove Analytics for quality assurance. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility features, and SEO practices, contributing to a positive user experience. However, some improvements could be made in security headers and cookie consent mechanisms to enhance compliance and security posture. Security-wise, the site enforces HTTPS and avoids exposing sensitive data, but lacks explicit security headers and a published security policy or incident response contacts. The absence of a vulnerability disclosure program and cookie consent banner indicates areas for compliance enhancement, particularly with privacy regulations. Overall, the site maintains a strong security baseline appropriate for a government portal. The overall risk assessment is low, given the official nature, consistent branding, and absence of suspicious content or vulnerabilities. Strategic recommendations include implementing security headers, adding cookie consent for GDPR compliance, publishing security policies, and enhancing transparency with vulnerability disclosure mechanisms to further strengthen trust and compliance.

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

7 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 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';…

  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 hawaii.gov

This scan found 28 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
62
Security headers
15
Email security
75
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
61

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 State of Hawaiʻi operates this portal as an essential government service platform, targeting multiple user segments including residents, businesses, government officials, and visitors. The business model is non-commercial, focusing on public service delivery and information dissemination. The site’s market position is authoritative as the official state website, supported by partnerships with various state departments and agencies. Revenue streams are not applicable as this is a government entity. Growth indicators include recent awards and continuous content updates. The partnership ecosystem is extensive, linking to numerous official state and federal government domains, enhancing service integration and user convenience. Strategic observations highlight the site’s role as a critical infrastructure for state digital services and public engagement.

Security posture

The security maturity of portal.ehawaii.gov is moderate to strong. HTTPS is enforced, ensuring encrypted communications. The site avoids exposing sensitive information in its HTML content and uses secure form submission methods. However, the lack of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents a gap that could be exploited in certain attack vectors. No visible vulnerability disclosure or incident response contacts limit transparency and responsiveness to security issues. Privacy compliance is partial, with a privacy policy present but no cookie consent mechanism detected. The site would benefit from adopting a formal security framework and publishing related policies to improve security culture and compliance posture.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to mitigate common web vulnerabilities.
  2. Deploy a cookie consent banner and mechanism to comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  3. Publish a detailed security policy and incident response contact information to enhance transparency and user trust.
  4. Establish a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and analytics tools to ensure no vulnerable or privacy-invasive components are included.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
State of Hawaiʻi
Description
The official website of the State of Hawaiʻi providing resources for government, residents, business, and visitors.
Key services
Government departments and agencies directory, Online services including business registration and driver records, News and alerts, Visitor information and resources, Job and unemployment resources
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Analytics, Freshchat, Siteimprove Analytics, Font Awesome, Bootstrap (implied by classes), jQuery (implied by $ usage in scripts)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with POST method

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Siteimprove Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Siteimprove Analytics
Marketing tools
Freshchat, Siteimprove Analytics
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official state government portal for Hawaiʻi
  2. Comprehensive content for multiple audiences
  3. Modern web technologies and analytics used
  4. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly listed on homepage
  5. No visible security.txt or vulnerability disclosure
  6. No cookie consent banner detected
  7. WHOIS data unavailable, likely privacy protected
  8. Multiple awards indicating quality and professionalism
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using standard modern web technologies including Google Analytics for traffic monitoring, Freshchat for live chat support, and Siteimprove Analytics for quality and accessibility monitoring. The use of Font Awesome icons and responsive design classes indicates attention to UI/UX. The site loads multiple fonts and scripts asynchronously to optimize performance. However, no specific CMS or hosting provider information is discernible from the HTML content. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and accessibility features. Opportunities exist to improve technical SEO and security header implementation. The site’s technical infrastructure supports a robust and scalable government portal but could benefit from modernization in security and privacy tooling.
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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