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Security report for nga.org

National Governors Association · Government · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The National Governors Association (NGA) is a well-established, bipartisan non-profit organization representing the governors of the 55 U.S. states, territories, and commonwealths. Founded in 1908, NGA serves as a leading forum for policy innovation, advocacy, and best practices sharing among state leaders. The website reflects a mature digital presence with comprehensive content, professional design, and clear navigation aimed at government officials and policy stakeholders. Technically, the site is built on WordPress with modern tools such as Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Smart Slider 3, ensuring a responsive and accessible user experience. SEO and privacy compliance are well addressed, including a detailed privacy policy and cookie consent mechanisms. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced, though additional security headers and explicit vulnerability disclosure policies could enhance trust. Overall, the NGA website demonstrates high legitimacy and professionalism, with no signs of malicious activity or content safety concerns. The absence of WHOIS data limits domain registration insights, but the organization's long-standing reputation and consistent branding support its credibility. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, publishing incident response and vulnerability disclosure information, and maintaining regular audits of third-party scripts.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
80/ 100 · Low
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. 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

  3. 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 nga.org

This scan found 24 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.

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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
80
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
80
Average
71

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

NGA occupies a unique market position as the authoritative bipartisan voice for U.S. governors, providing policy research, advocacy, and technical assistance. Its business model is membership-based, focusing on facilitating collaboration and innovation across states. The organization targets government officials, policy makers, and public sector stakeholders. NGA's extensive program areas and task forces indicate a broad policy influence. The website's content and structure support growth and engagement, with active social media channels and frequent updates. Partnerships and collaborations are implied but not explicitly detailed on the site.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and cookie consent implemented, reflecting compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the analysis. However, the absence of explicit security headers (e.g., Content Security Policy, HSTS) and lack of published security or incident response policies represent areas for improvement. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt files were found, which could enhance transparency and trust. Overall, the security maturity is good but could be elevated with additional best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options.
  2. Publish a formal security policy and incident response plan accessible to users and stakeholders.
  3. Establish and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program, including a security.txt file.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance transparency by providing data retention policies and detailed privacy compliance documentation.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
National Governors Association
Description
Founded in 1908, the National Governors Association is the voice of the nation’s governors and one of the most respected public policy organizations in the country. The association’s members are the governors of the 55 states, territories and commonwealths. Members come to the association from across the political spectrum, but NGA itself is bipartisan. Because of that, governors can share best practices, speak with an informed voice on national policy and develop innovative solutions that improve citizens’ lives through state government and support the principles of federalism.
Key services
Policy research and development, Advocacy and government relations, Best practices sharing, Meetings and webinars, Technical assistance
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Smart Slider 3, FontAwesome, jQuery, D3.js
Frameworks
Yoast SEO
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner
  • Privacy policy available

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is rich, relevant, and professionally presented.
  3. Strong focus on bipartisan government policy and services.
  4. Good privacy and cookie compliance with user consent mechanisms.
  5. No visible security vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data.
  6. WHOIS data unavailable, likely due to privacy protection or query failure.
Technical notes

Notes

The NGA website is powered by WordPress CMS, leveraging modern JavaScript libraries including D3.js for data visualization and Smart Slider 3 for interactive content. Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics are used for tracking and analytics. The site uses FontAwesome for icons and Google Fonts for typography. The design is responsive and optimized for mobile devices. Performance is moderate, with some optimization opportunities in asset loading and caching. Accessibility features are present but could be further enhanced with ARIA landmarks and keyboard navigation improvements. SEO is well supported by Yoast SEO plugin and proper meta tags.
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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