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Security report for hessen.de

Hessische Landesregierung · Government · Germany

Medium risk. 3 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view.

Security score

72/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The website hessen.de serves as the official digital portal for the Hessian state government in Germany, providing comprehensive information on government activities, policies, and public services. It targets residents, media, and stakeholders interested in Hessen's political and social landscape. The site offers a wide range of services including news updates, digital administrative portals, career opportunities, and accessibility features, positioning itself as a central hub for state-related information. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 10, leveraging modern web technologies such as TLS 1.3 for secure communications and lazy loading for performance optimization. The hosting infrastructure is managed by Plusline, with a broad SSL certificate covering numerous subdomains, indicating a mature and well-maintained digital environment. The website demonstrates good mobile optimization and accessibility compliance, enhancing user experience across devices. From a security perspective, the site employs strong TLS protocols and maintains a valid SPF record for email authentication. However, it lacks DNSSEC, CAA records, HSTS, and DMARC, which are recommended to enhance DNS security and email protection. No explicit cookie consent mechanism or incident response policies are visible, suggesting areas for improvement in compliance and transparency. Overall, hessen.de presents a professional and trustworthy government portal with excellent content quality and user experience. Strategic enhancements in security headers, privacy mechanisms, and incident response disclosures would further strengthen its security posture and regulatory compliance.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of hessen.de. View the latest report

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

3 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

    • 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 hessen.de

This scan found 19 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
82
Security headers
85
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
18
Average
72

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 hessen.de, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
16,122
Employees
78
Customers
15,878
Third parties
166
Weak passwords
13%

Latest record dated 2026-06-18 · 158 subdomains affected

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 hessen.de.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –hsvnowa.hessen.de2026-06-18
  • –login.schulportal.hessen.de2026-06-16
  • –selfowa.hessen.de2026-06-13
  • –selfowa.hessen.de2026-06-12
  • –owa.hessen.de2026-06-12

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

Open in Breach(opens in a new tab)Monitor on Breach(opens in a new tab)

Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

Hessen.de operates as the official online presence of the Hessian state government, serving as a critical communication channel for public administration and citizen engagement. Its market position is that of a trusted government entity, providing authoritative information and services. The business model focuses on public service delivery rather than commercial revenue generation, emphasizing transparency, accessibility, and digital transformation. The portal integrates multiple government sectors including finance, justice, education, digital affairs, and social services, reflecting a broad partnership ecosystem within the state administration. It supports various user segments such as citizens, businesses, media, and public employees, facilitating information dissemination and service access. The presence of career and digital service links indicates ongoing efforts to modernize government operations and attract talent. Growth indicators include active social media engagement and continuous content updates on regional events and statistics. The strategic use of subdomains for specialized ministries and services enhances organizational clarity and user navigation. The site’s partnership with official ministries and administrative portals underscores its role as a central government platform.

Security posture

The security maturity of hessen.de is moderate to good, with implementation of modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.3 and 1.2) and absence of critical SSL vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed, FREAK, and Logjam. The SPF record is valid, supporting email authentication. However, the lack of DNSSEC and CAA records exposes the domain to potential DNS spoofing and unauthorized certificate issuance risks. The absence of HSTS and OCSP stapling reduces the effectiveness of HTTPS enforcement and certificate revocation checking, potentially impacting user security. No DMARC record is present, which could allow email spoofing and phishing attacks targeting the domain. The site does not display a cookie consent mechanism, which may be a compliance gap under GDPR. No explicit security or incident response policies are published, and no dedicated security contact channels (e.g., security@ or abuse@ emails) are found, indicating limited transparency and readiness for vulnerability reporting. Overall, while the site maintains a secure baseline, enhancements in DNS security, email protection, and incident response transparency are recommended to elevate its security posture.

Recommendations

  1. Enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) with includeSubDomains and preload to enforce HTTPS and protect against protocol downgrade attacks.
  2. Implement DNSSEC to secure DNS queries and prevent DNS spoofing or cache poisoning.
  3. Publish a DMARC record to improve email security and reduce phishing risks.
  4. Add OCSP stapling to improve SSL certificate revocation checking performance and reliability.
  5. Establish and publish a security.txt file and dedicated security contact channels to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure and incident response.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is powered by Drupal 10 CMS, indicating a modern and supported content management platform. It uses AblePlayer for accessible media playback and lazysizes for efficient image loading, enhancing performance and accessibility. The site employs SVG icons and responsive design elements consistent with Bootstrap or similar frameworks. Hosting is managed by Plusline, with DNS records showing multiple authoritative nameservers. The SSL certificate covers a wide range of subdomains, supporting a large ecosystem of government services. Performance metrics indicate moderate load times (~3.2 seconds) with 41 resources and a page size of approximately 174 KB, which is acceptable but could be optimized further. Mobile optimization and accessibility features are well implemented, including skip links, ARIA roles, and alternative language links. SEO is supported by canonical tags and meta descriptions. However, the absence of some security headers and DNS security features represents technical debt and potential risk areas. Overall, the technical infrastructure is robust but could benefit from security and performance tuning.
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. 69/100Medium29 findingsView report
  2. 69/100Medium29 findingsView report
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