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Security report for lbutilities.org

Long Beach Utilities · Energy · United States

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

Security score

67/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Long Beach Utilities is a municipal utility provider serving the City of Long Beach, California, offering essential services including water supply and treatment, natural gas distribution, and sewer management. The organization operates as a public utility funded through utility fees and government budgets, targeting residents and businesses within the city. The website reflects a well-structured and professional digital presence, featuring multi-language support and comprehensive service information. The platform is built on modern web technologies including ASP.NET WebForms and the Granicus OpenCities CMS, with integrations such as Google Maps API enhancing user experience. From a security perspective, the website enforces HTTPS and employs secure form submissions, though it lacks some advanced security headers and explicit published security policies. The absence of detailed privacy and cookie policies indicates room for improvement in privacy compliance, especially regarding GDPR. The WHOIS data is unavailable due to a malformed request, limiting domain registration verification; however, the official contact information and government domain (.org) lend credibility to the site. Overall, the website demonstrates a solid technical infrastructure and business credibility appropriate for a municipal utility. Strategic enhancements in privacy policy transparency, security header implementation, and incident response documentation would further strengthen its security posture and compliance standing.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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 lbutilities.org

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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
72
Security headers
15
Email security
85
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
67

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

Long Beach Utilities holds a stable market position as a municipal utility serving a defined geographic area. Its competitive advantage lies in its status as a government entity providing essential services with direct community engagement, including public budget workshops and water resource planning. The business model relies on regulated utility fees and public funding, targeting residential and commercial customers in Long Beach. The website's multi-language support and detailed service sections indicate a focus on accessibility and customer service. Partnerships with platforms like Granicus for CMS and integration with government portals suggest a mature digital ecosystem. Growth indicators include active community engagement and published financial transparency. The absence of commercial advertising and affiliate programs aligns with its public service mandate.

Security posture

The website exhibits a moderate to strong security posture with HTTPS enforced and secure form handling. However, the lack of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents a potential area for enhancement. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The site does not publish explicit security or incident response policies, which could impact incident handling readiness and transparency. Privacy compliance is basic, with no cookie consent mechanism or GDPR-specific disclosures evident. The use of third-party scripts like Akamai Boomerang for analytics is noted but appears minimal in tracking scope. Overall, the security maturity is appropriate for a municipal utility website but would benefit from formalized policies and improved header configurations.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear GDPR compliance statements and consent mechanisms.
  2. Add security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  3. Publish explicit security and incident response policies to improve transparency and preparedness.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance WHOIS data accuracy and domain registration transparency to strengthen trust and legitimacy.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Long Beach Utilities
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Long Beach Utilities
Description
Long Beach Utilities is a municipal utility providing water, natural gas, and sewer services to the City of Long Beach, CA. It offers services including water treatment, water use restrictions, natural gas safety, sewer management, customer service, and development services.
Key services
Water supply and treatment, Natural gas distribution and safety, Sewer services, Customer service and billing, Development services for water, gas, and sewer infrastructure
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.7.1, Google Maps API, ASP.NET WebForms, Modernizr, Granicus OpenCities CMS
Frameworks
ASP.NET WebForms
Platforms
Windows Server (implied by ASP.NET WebForms)
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 form submission via POST

Analytics and tracking

Services
Akamai Boomerang
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Akamai Boomerang
Marketing tools
Google Fonts, Granicus OpenCities platform
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenge.
  2. Content is professionally presented and relevant to municipal utility services.
  3. Multiple language options available indicating accessibility focus.
  4. No privacy or cookie policy pages explicitly found, though privacy statement link exists.
  5. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  6. WHOIS data unavailable, limiting domain trust verification.
  7. Use of modern web technologies and Google APIs.
  8. Social media presence on Facebook and Instagram.
  9. No suspicious or malicious content detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a mature ASP.NET WebForms framework integrated with the Granicus OpenCities CMS platform, leveraging modern JavaScript libraries such as jQuery 3.7.1 and Google Maps API for enhanced interactivity. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization and accessibility features, including multi-language support and ARIA roles. Performance is moderate, with external dependencies on Google Fonts and Akamai Boomerang analytics. The HTML structure is valid and SEO-friendly with appropriate meta tags and Open Graph data. Technical risks are minimal but include reliance on older ASP.NET WebForms technology which may pose modernization challenges. Opportunities exist to improve security headers and privacy compliance to align with current best practices.
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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