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Security report for paauditor.gov

Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General · Government · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

67/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General website serves as the official digital presence for the state's chief fiscal watchdog. It provides comprehensive audit reports, news releases, and resources aimed at ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent legally and properly. The site targets Pennsylvania residents, government officials, and stakeholders interested in fiscal accountability. The business model is that of a government agency focused on transparency and public service, holding a strong market position as an authoritative source for state audit information. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern frameworks like Bootstrap and integrates analytics and tracking tools such as Google Tag Manager and Microsoft Clarity. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure suitable for a government entity. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and uses Google reCAPTCHA to protect forms, indicating a solid baseline security posture. However, the absence of explicit security headers and a cookie consent mechanism suggests room for improvement in compliance and defense-in-depth strategies. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. Overall, the website is trustworthy and professional, with strong branding and consistent content quality. The lack of publicly available WHOIS data is typical for .gov domains and does not detract from legitimacy. Strategic recommendations include enhancing privacy compliance with cookie policies, publishing security and incident response policies, and implementing additional security headers to further harden the site.

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

6 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 Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

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

    • 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

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

Keep watching paauditor.gov

This scan found 24 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

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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
67
Security headers
15
Email security
85
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
67

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 Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General operates as a key government agency responsible for auditing state and local government spending. Its competitive advantage lies in its official status and mandate to ensure fiscal accountability. The agency's revenue streams are government-funded, focusing on public service rather than commercial profit. Target customers include taxpayers, government officials, and public watchdogs. Growth indicators include active social media engagement and regular publication of audit reports. The partnership ecosystem includes social media platforms and analytics providers. The agency maintains a transparent and authoritative market presence with a focus on public trust and accountability.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforced and use of Google reCAPTCHA to mitigate automated abuse. The absence of visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents a moderate compliance gap. No incident response or security policy pages were found, indicating potential areas for improvement in transparency and readiness. Data protection practices appear sound with no exposed sensitive information. The site does not currently publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file, which could enhance security culture and incident handling. Overall, the security maturity is good but could benefit from formalized policies and additional technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Publish a clear cookie policy and implement a user consent mechanism to improve privacy compliance.
  3. Develop and make publicly available incident response and security policy documentation.
  4. Establish a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  5. Enhance contact information visibility specifically for security and privacy concerns to build trust.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General
Description
We're the chief fiscal watchdog of the Commonwealth, responsible for using audits to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent legally and properly.
Key services
Audits, Fiscal oversight, Public reports, Educational resources, Complaint and report filing
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, Google reCAPTCHA, Microsoft Clarity, Juicer social feed
Frameworks
Bootstrap 4.10
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA for forms
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Microsoft Clarity
Marketing tools
Microsoft Clarity
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official Pennsylvania government website for the Auditor General
  2. Comprehensive audit and fiscal oversight content
  3. Strong branding and consistent design
  4. No WHOIS data available publicly, typical for .gov domains
  5. No visible security or privacy policy gaps except cookie consent
  6. Use of modern analytics and tracking tools
  7. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  8. Social media presence on major platforms with official accounts
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a WordPress CMS platform using Bootstrap 4.10 for responsive design and jQuery for client-side scripting. It integrates Google Tag Manager and Microsoft Clarity for analytics and user behavior tracking. Hosting appears to leverage a CDN (b-cdn.net) for content delivery, improving performance. The site loads scripts asynchronously and uses modern SEO and accessibility best practices. Performance is moderate, with potential for optimization in script loading and caching. Technical debt is low, but the site could benefit from enhanced security header implementation and formal privacy controls.
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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