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Security report for oostende.be

Stad Oostende · Government · Belgium

Low risk. 1 critical or high finding in GDPR outside view.

Security score

89/100

Risk levelLow

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

Stad Oostende operates as the official municipal government website for the city of Oostende, Belgium. It provides residents and visitors with news, public service information, digital appointment scheduling, and citizen engagement tools such as the O-punt reporting platform. The website is well-positioned as a trusted source of local government information and services, targeting a broad audience including local citizens and tourists. The business model is typical for a government entity, focusing on service delivery rather than commercial revenue. Technically, the website is built on the Icordis CMS platform by LCP nv, utilizing modern JavaScript libraries such as jQuery and Masonry for layout, along with accessibility tools like ReadSpeaker. It employs Matomo analytics for privacy-conscious user tracking and includes cookie consent mechanisms compliant with GDPR. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization and accessibility features, ensuring usability for a wide audience. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and uses secure forms with anti-forgery tokens. However, it lacks publicly available security policies, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms, which are recommended for enhanced transparency and trust. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. Overall, the security posture is solid but could be improved with additional documentation and security headers. The overall risk assessment is low, with the site showing strong legitimacy, consistent WHOIS data, and no signs of malicious activity. Strategic recommendations include publishing security and incident response policies, implementing vulnerability disclosure, and enhancing security headers to further strengthen the security posture and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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

1 finding 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 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 oostende.be

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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
85
Security headers
100
Email security
98
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
89

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

Stad Oostende holds a strong market position as the official government portal for the city, providing essential public services and information. Its competitive advantage lies in its official status and comprehensive digital service offerings tailored to local residents and visitors. The business model is service-oriented, focusing on civic engagement and information dissemination rather than profit generation. Revenue streams are typical of government funding. The target customer segments include local citizens, businesses, and tourists. Growth indicators include ongoing digital service enhancements and community engagement initiatives like Wijkprikkels. The partnership ecosystem includes technology providers such as LCP nv and govflanders widget services. Operationally, the city maintains a consistent brand and content strategy aligned with municipal goals.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS, secure form handling, and privacy-compliant cookie management. The use of Matomo analytics reflects a privacy-conscious approach to user tracking. However, the absence of a published security policy, incident response contacts, and vulnerability disclosure program indicates gaps in transparency and readiness. Security headers are not explicitly detected, suggesting room for improvement in defense-in-depth. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were found in the HTML content. Compliance with GDPR is evident through cookie consent and privacy policy presence. Overall, the security culture appears adequate but could benefit from formalized policies and enhanced technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and commitments.
  2. Provide clear incident response contact information, such as a security@ or abuse@ email address.
  3. Implement and publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  4. Enhance HTTP security headers including Content Security Policy (CSP), Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options.
  5. Regularly review and audit third-party scripts and dependencies to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Stad Oostende
Description
Officiële site van de stad Oostende met nieuws, informatie over de diensten en een digitaal loket.
Key services
News and announcements, Digital services and appointments, Public works information, Parking information, Social welfare and care, Citizen reporting (O-punt)
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Icordis CMS, jQuery 3.6.2, Masonry.js, ReadSpeaker webReader, Matomo Analytics, Polyfill and widget client from govflanders, LazySizes (lazy loading images)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent mechanism
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of secure forms with anti-forgery tokens

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is in Dutch (nl) and targeted at residents and visitors of Oostende.
  3. Strong focus on public services, news, and citizen engagement.
  4. Use of modern web technologies and accessibility features.
  5. Presence of cookie consent and privacy policy indicates GDPR awareness.
  6. No explicit security policy or incident response information publicly available.
  7. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found.
  8. Social media presence limited to Facebook and Instagram official pages.
  9. No advertising or affiliate marketing detected.
  10. Matomo analytics used for privacy-respecting tracking.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on the Icordis CMS platform, leveraging modern JavaScript libraries such as jQuery and Masonry for dynamic layout and user interface enhancements. Accessibility is supported through ReadSpeaker integration and skip navigation links. The site uses Matomo for analytics, favoring privacy over commercial tracking solutions. Lazy loading of images improves performance. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and viewport meta tags. While performance is moderate, there is potential for improvement through optimization of third-party scripts and caching strategies. The technical stack is stable and well-suited for a government portal, but could benefit from enhanced security headers and updated frameworks to reduce technical debt.
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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