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Security report for novascotia.ca

Government of Nova Scotia · Government · Canada

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

Security score

74/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Government of Nova Scotia's official website serves as a comprehensive portal for provincial government services, information, and news. It targets residents, businesses, and stakeholders within Nova Scotia, Canada, providing access to programs, government departments, and public service job opportunities. The site is well-branded, consistent, and reflects its authoritative government status with clear trust indicators such as official social media accounts and Crown copyright notices. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10, leveraging modern web technologies and analytics tools like Google Analytics and Cloudflare Insights. It is mobile-optimized and accessible, offering a positive user experience with clear navigation and relevant content. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforced and no visible vulnerabilities, though explicit security headers and policies could be improved. Privacy compliance is basic, with a privacy policy present but lacking a cookie consent mechanism. Overall, the site is highly legitimate and trustworthy, though it would benefit from enhanced transparency around security and privacy practices.

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

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.

    • 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
    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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  • TLS certificates and expiry
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  • Security headers
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  • 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
57
Security headers
80
Email security
75
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
74

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 website positions the Government of Nova Scotia as a key public sector entity delivering essential services and information to its constituents. Its business model is service-oriented, focusing on transparency, accessibility, and public engagement. The site supports government communications, public awareness campaigns, and recruitment for public service roles. The presence of multiple official domains and social media channels indicates a mature digital ecosystem. While revenue streams are not applicable, the site supports government operational goals and citizen services. The lack of direct contact information on the homepage suggests a centralized approach to communication. The partnership ecosystem includes government departments and public service entities, with no commercial partnerships evident. Strategic observations highlight the importance of maintaining high security and privacy standards given the sensitive nature of government data and public trust.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of reputable analytics and tag management tools, and no exposed sensitive data. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options is a minor gap. There is no published security policy or incident response contact, which limits transparency for security researchers and users. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file is present, reducing opportunities for coordinated vulnerability reporting. Privacy compliance is partial, lacking cookie consent mechanisms which may be required under some privacy laws. Overall, the site is secure but could enhance its security culture and transparency by publishing detailed policies and improving header configurations.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and verify comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Referrer-Policy.
  2. Add a visible cookie consent banner to comply with privacy regulations and improve user transparency.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response contact information to enhance trust and facilitate vulnerability reporting.
  4. Consider creating and publishing a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to engage the security community.
  5. Regularly review and update privacy and security practices to align with evolving compliance requirements and best practices.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Government of Nova Scotia
Description
Official website for the province of Nova Scotia providing government services and information.
Key services
Programs and services information, Government news and updates, Access to government departments and resources, Public service job opportunities
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Cloudflare Insights
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google Tag Manager with async loading
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Cloudflare Insights
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Cloudflare Insights
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official provincial government website with comprehensive content and services
  2. No WHOIS data publicly available, typical for government domains
  3. Uses modern CMS (Drupal 10) and standard analytics tools
  4. No visible security or privacy policy pages beyond basic privacy and terms links
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly listed on homepage
  6. No cookie consent banner detected
  7. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found
  8. Website is mobile optimized and accessible
  9. No adult or questionable content detected
  10. No WAF blocking or challenge detected
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS, indicating a current and maintainable technology stack. It uses Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager for analytics and marketing, loaded asynchronously to optimize performance. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features, contributing to a positive user experience. Hosting appears to be government-managed with Cloudflare Insights for performance monitoring. Performance is moderate, with no major issues detected in the HTML content. There is room for improvement in SEO and accessibility by adding more explicit ARIA roles and meta tags. The absence of visible security headers suggests a need for technical hardening. Overall, the technical infrastructure is solid but could benefit from enhanced security configurations and privacy compliance features.
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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