Skip to main content

Security report for hessen.de

Hessische Landesregierung · Government · Germany

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The website hessen.de is the official digital presence of the Hessian state government in Germany, providing news, press releases, and public service information to citizens and stakeholders. It serves as a comprehensive portal for government-related content, cultural events, and administrative services. The site is well-branded with consistent use of official logos and government symbols, targeting a broad audience including residents, media, and public officials. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 10, leveraging modern web technologies such as lazy loading images and accessible multimedia players. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization and accessibility features, ensuring usability across devices and for users with disabilities. SEO practices are adequately implemented with proper meta tags and structured navigation. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS and avoids exposing sensitive information. However, explicit security headers and policies such as a security.txt or incident response contacts are not evident. Privacy compliance is limited by the absence of visible privacy and cookie policies or consent mechanisms, which is an area for improvement. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professional, reflecting its government affiliation. The risk level is low, but enhancing privacy disclosures and security headers would strengthen its compliance and security posture.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
33/ 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

4 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

  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.

    • High

      Weak Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

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

Keep watching hessen.de

This scan found 21 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.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. See sample alerts.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
67
Security headers
85
Email security
70
DNS health
60
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
33
Average
69

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 an essential government portal for the state of Hessen, Germany, positioning itself as the authoritative source for state government news, policies, and public information. Its competitive advantage lies in its official status and comprehensive coverage of government activities, cultural events, and citizen services. The business model is non-commercial, focused on public service and information dissemination. The site supports transparency and engagement with citizens and media, fostering trust and government accountability. Partnerships with other government portals and social media platforms extend its reach. Growth indicators include regular updates and multimedia content, reflecting active management and user engagement.

Security posture

The security posture of hessen.de is moderate to good. The site enforces HTTPS, ensuring encrypted communications. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the analyzed content. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and others reduces defense-in-depth. There is no visible security policy or incident response contact information, which limits transparency in handling security incidents. Privacy compliance is partial, lacking clear cookie consent mechanisms and privacy policy disclosures. The site should consider implementing these to meet GDPR and other regulatory requirements fully. Overall, the site demonstrates a baseline security maturity appropriate for a government portal but has room for enhancement.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism to improve GDPR compliance.
  2. Implement and configure security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Add a security policy page and incident response contact information (e.g., security@ or abuse@ email).
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and CMS components to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance transparency by providing data protection officer contact details and data retention policies.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Hessische Landesregierung
Description
Offizielle Website der Landesregierung Hessen mit Informationen zu Projekten, Veranstaltungen und aktuellen Meldungen.
Key services
News and press releases, Government information, Event information, Public service announcements
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, AblePlayer, lazysizes, Bootstrap (implied by classes), SVG icons
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS usage implied by canonical URL
  • No exposed sensitive data found in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is an official government portal for the state of Hessen, Germany.
  2. Content is in German language and targeted at residents and stakeholders in Hessen.
  3. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet.
  4. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the provided content.
  5. Social media presence includes Mastodon links to official government accounts.
  6. Uses Drupal 10 CMS with modern web technologies and accessibility features.
  7. No signs of advertising or tracking scripts detected.
  8. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found.
  9. No explicit data protection officer contact found.
  10. Content is safe and suitable for general audiences.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS platform, indicating a mature technical infrastructure. It uses lazy loading for images and accessible multimedia players, enhancing performance and user experience. The site is mobile-optimized and includes accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA labels. SEO is supported through proper meta tags and structured navigation menus. However, no explicit hosting provider or CDN information was found. Performance is moderate, with potential improvements in caching and resource optimization. The technical stack is solid but could benefit from enhanced security configurations and privacy compliance tools.
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. 69/100 −3Medium29 findingsView report
  2. 72/100Medium26 findingsView report
Reviews of this site

Share your experience with hessen.de. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review hessen.de.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.