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Security report for ohiohistory.org

Ohio History Connection · Education · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

69/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Ohio History Connection is a large, well-established non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and sharing Ohio's history through museums, historic sites, educational programs, and research resources. The website serves a broad audience including educators, researchers, tourists, and the general public interested in Ohio's cultural heritage. The organization maintains a strong market position as a leading historical entity in Ohio with over 50 historic sites and extensive educational offerings. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern frameworks and plugins, providing a responsive and user-friendly experience. Security posture is strong with HTTPS, security headers, and spam protection via reCAPTCHA, though there is room to improve by publishing explicit security policies and incident response contacts. Overall, the site is professional, trustworthy, and compliant with privacy regulations, making it a reliable resource for its audience.

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

5 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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

  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. 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

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

Keep watching ohiohistory.org

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

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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
47
Security headers
45
Email security
80
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
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

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The Ohio History Connection operates primarily in the education, government, and non-profit sectors, focusing on cultural preservation and public engagement. Its business model includes memberships, donations, educational programming, and event hosting. The organization leverages partnerships such as the Ohio History Store for merchandise sales. The website's content and structure indicate a mature digital presence with clear branding and consistent messaging. Growth indicators include active social media channels and a comprehensive events calendar. The organization benefits from trust signals like SSL, privacy policies, and structured data markup, enhancing credibility and user confidence.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a solid security foundation with enforced HTTPS, presence of key security headers, and use of Google reCAPTCHA to protect forms from spam and abuse. No exposed sensitive information or vulnerable libraries were detected in the analyzed content. However, the absence of a publicly available security policy or vulnerability disclosure program limits transparency. Incident response contact information is also not found, which could be improved to enhance security readiness. Compliance with GDPR is indicated through privacy and cookie policies. Overall, the security posture is good but could be strengthened by formalizing and publishing security governance documents.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and compliance.
  2. Implement a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  3. Enhance accessibility features to meet higher compliance standards (e.g., WCAG 2.1 AA).
  4. Provide clear incident response contact information for security issues.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and plugins to mitigate vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Ohio History Connection
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Ohio History Connection
Description
Explore Ohio history through stories, photos, videos, and events. The Ohio History Connection champions all Ohio history, including the 50+ historic sites across Ohio.
Key services
Historic site management, Educational programs, Research archives and library, Events and experiences, Membership and donations
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Bootstrap, Google Tag Manager, Google reCAPTCHA, Modern Events Calendar Lite plugin, AddThis social sharing, FontAwesome
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Platforms
WordPress CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA on forms
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Security headers present

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel
Marketing tools
AddThis, Mailchimp
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 rich content and no blocking detected.
  2. Uses WordPress CMS with modern plugins and frameworks.
  3. Strong focus on Ohio history education and preservation.
  4. Includes multiple forms with reCAPTCHA for spam protection.
  5. Clear privacy, cookie, and terms of service policies present.
  6. Social media integration with official Ohio History Connection accounts.
  7. No exposed sensitive data or obvious vulnerabilities found.
  8. WHOIS data unavailable likely due to privacy protection or query failure.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress CMS using a combination of jQuery, Bootstrap, and various plugins such as Modern Events Calendar Lite and AddThis for social sharing. Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics are used for tracking and analytics, alongside Facebook Pixel for marketing. The site is mobile responsive with good SEO optimization including meta tags and structured data in JSON-LD format. Performance is moderate, with lazy loading images and asynchronous script loading improving load times. Some technical debt may exist due to multiple plugins and legacy jQuery usage, but overall the infrastructure supports a professional and scalable web presence.
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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