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Security report for ontario.ca

Government of Ontario · Government · Canada

Low risk. 2 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view.

Security score

84/100

Risk levelLow

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

The Government of Ontario's official website serves as a comprehensive portal for residents and businesses to access information on government programs and services. It holds a strong market position as the authoritative source for provincial government information in Ontario, Canada. The website targets a broad audience including citizens, businesses, and stakeholders seeking government resources and contact avenues. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 10, leveraging modern web technologies and integrating Google Tag Manager for analytics. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure. Security-wise, the site enforces HTTPS and employs secure form practices, though it lacks some advanced security headers and explicit security policies. The absence of WHOIS data is due to privacy protection by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which is justified for a government domain. Overall, the site is trustworthy, professional, and well-maintained, with minor recommendations to enhance security transparency and cookie consent mechanisms.

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

2 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

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Keep watching ontario.ca

This scan found 13 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.

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Recommended

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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
90
Security headers
80
Email security
93
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
84

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention ontario.ca, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
11,933
Employees
13
Customers
11,150
Third parties
770
Weak passwords
7%

Latest record dated 2026-05-31 · 31 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for ontario.ca.

Select it in the checkout above.

Masked preview

  • –signin.ontario.ca2026-05-31
  • –webmail.ontario.ca2026-05-31
  • –signin.ontario.ca2026-05-31
  • –webmail.ontario.ca2026-05-26
  • –signin.ontario.ca2026-05-22

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Open in Breach(opens in a new tab)Monitor on Breach(opens in a new tab)

Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

The Government of Ontario operates as an essential government entity providing public services through its digital platform. Its business model focuses on information dissemination and service facilitation rather than commercial revenue. The website's ecosystem includes various government sectors such as health, education, environment, and economy, reflecting a broad service portfolio. The site’s partnership ecosystem is not explicitly detailed but likely includes other government agencies and service providers. The platform's growth indicators include regular content updates and integration of modern web technologies. Strategic observations highlight the importance of maintaining high trust and security standards given the public nature of the services offered.

Security posture

The website exhibits a solid security posture with mandatory HTTPS encryption and secure form handling. However, it lacks explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy and does not publish a security.txt or incident response contact details, which are best practices for transparency and vulnerability management. There are no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data in the HTML content. Compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR is indicated by the presence of a comprehensive privacy policy. Incident response readiness and security culture indicators are not publicly detailed, suggesting room for improvement in security communication and transparency.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Introduce a clear cookie consent mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and improve user transparency.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response contact information to facilitate vulnerability reporting and enhance trust.
  4. Consider adding a security.txt file at the root domain to formalize vulnerability disclosure processes.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party libraries and scripts to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Government of Ontario
Description
The official website of the Government of Ontario. Find information on programs and services.
Key services
Information on government programs and services, Access to government resources, Contact and feedback mechanisms
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, AWS Found Search
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
excellent
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with proper labels

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official Government of Ontario website
  2. Content is comprehensive and professionally presented
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity
  4. Uses modern CMS Drupal 10
  5. Good mobile and accessibility support
  6. Privacy and terms pages are present and comprehensive
  7. No direct contact emails or phone numbers publicly listed, contact via form
  8. No security.txt or explicit security policy found
  9. No WHOIS data available due to privacy protection by CIRA
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS, indicating a robust and scalable infrastructure. It uses jQuery and Google Tag Manager for analytics and tracking. The site loads asynchronously critical scripts to optimize performance. Mobile optimization and accessibility are excellent, with responsive design and ARIA attributes. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and Open Graph data. The site does not reveal its hosting provider explicitly but uses AWS services for search functionality. Performance is moderate, with potential for improvement through further optimization of assets and caching strategies. Technical risks are minimal, but the absence of some security headers and explicit security policies could be addressed to reduce risk.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 84/100Low22 findingsView report
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