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Security report for ohio.gov

State of Ohio · Government · United States

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

75/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Ohio.gov is the official website of the State of Ohio, serving as a comprehensive portal for residents, businesses, visitors, and government employees. It provides access to a wide range of public services including resident resources, business tools, tourism information, job search, and government resources. The site is positioned as a trusted government platform with consistent branding and a focus on accessibility and user assistance through features like a chatbot. Technically, the site is built on IBM WebSphere Portal, leveraging modern monitoring tools such as New Relic and Monsido heatmaps. The infrastructure supports good performance and mobile optimization, with accessibility features implemented to serve diverse users. Security posture is strong with HTTPS enforcement, domain transfer protection, and secure authentication via OHID, although some security headers could be improved. Privacy compliance is limited by the absence of explicit privacy and cookie policies in the analyzed content. Overall, the site demonstrates high business credibility and trustworthiness as a government entity, with recommendations to enhance privacy disclosures and security headers for further improvement.

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. 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 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

  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 ohio.gov

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.

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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
69
Security headers
60
Email security
85
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
75

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 State of Ohio operates this enterprise-level government portal to deliver essential services and information to its constituents. The business model is public service-oriented, focusing on transparency, accessibility, and efficient service delivery. The site targets a broad audience including residents, businesses, tourists, and government staff. Its market position as the official state website is reinforced by the .gov domain and long domain history since 1997. The platform integrates multiple technologies and partners for analytics and user engagement, indicating a mature digital ecosystem. While no direct subsidiaries or partners are identified, the site links to various Ohio government subdomains and services. The portal's strategic use of chatbots and analytics tools suggests ongoing efforts to improve user experience and operational insights.

Security posture

Ohio.gov exhibits a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS, domain transfer protection, and secure login mechanisms via OHID. The use of New Relic for monitoring and session replay indicates proactive performance and security oversight. However, the absence of DNSSEC and some recommended security headers like Content Security Policy and X-Frame-Options presents opportunities for enhancement. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the analyzed content. Privacy policies and incident response information are not explicitly available, which could impact compliance and user trust. Overall, the site maintains a strong security foundation appropriate for a government portal but should address policy transparency and header hardening to align with best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Publish comprehensive and easily accessible privacy and cookie policies to improve privacy compliance and user trust.
  2. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  3. Implement and enforce Content Security Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options headers to strengthen security posture.
  4. Provide clear contact information including security incident response contacts to improve transparency and readiness.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and analytics tools to ensure no vulnerabilities or privacy issues arise.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
State of Ohio
Description
On the State of Ohio's official website you'll find information and services to help you live, work, travel, and do business.
Key services
Resident services, Business tools, Tourism information, Job search, Government resources
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
IBM WebSphere Portal, jQuery 1.11.2, FontAwesome, Google Fonts (Source Sans Pro, Material Icons), New Relic monitoring, Dialogflow chatbot, Monsido heatmaps, Custom JavaScript polyfills
Frameworks
IBM WebSphere Portal, New Relic SPA monitoring
Platforms
WebSphere Portal, Google Fonts, Dialogflow
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • ServerTransferProhibited domain status
  • Use of OHID for secure authentication
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of New Relic for monitoring

Analytics and tracking

Services
New Relic, Monsido heatmaps, Custom Ohio analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
New Relic, Monsido heatmaps
Marketing tools
Dialogflow chatbot
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official State of Ohio government website with comprehensive public services.
  2. Uses IBM WebSphere Portal CMS platform.
  3. Includes accessibility features and language translation options.
  4. Integrates chatbot powered by Dialogflow for user assistance.
  5. Employs New Relic and Monsido for monitoring and analytics.
  6. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found in provided content.
  7. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in provided content.
  8. No explicit security or incident response policies found in provided content.
  9. Domain WHOIS data shows privacy protection but domain age and status indicate legitimacy.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on IBM WebSphere Portal, a robust enterprise CMS platform suitable for government use. It employs jQuery 1.11.2, FontAwesome icons, Google Fonts, and integrates advanced monitoring via New Relic and Monsido heatmaps. The site includes a Dialogflow-powered chatbot for user assistance, enhancing engagement. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and accessibility features. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and structured data. However, some legacy JavaScript polyfills and older jQuery versions suggest potential modernization opportunities. Hosting details are not explicit, but the domain and infrastructure indicate a stable enterprise environment. Overall, the technical implementation supports a secure, accessible, and user-friendly government portal.
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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