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Security report for pittsburghpa.gov

City of Pittsburgh · Government · United States

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in SSL/TLS, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

67/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The City of Pittsburgh's official website serves as a comprehensive portal for residents and visitors to access a wide range of municipal services, government information, and community resources. It is positioned as the authoritative source for city-related news, events, and service requests, including 311 services, public safety, recreation, and business development. The website targets a broad audience including residents, businesses, and tourists, providing clear navigation and multilingual support to enhance accessibility. Technically, the site leverages a modern technology stack including jQuery, Google Maps API, and the OpenCities CMS platform, built on ASP.NET WebForms. The infrastructure supports responsive design and accessibility features, ensuring usability across devices. Performance is moderate with asynchronous loading of key resources and integration of analytics tools such as Google Tag Manager and Akamai mPulse. From a security perspective, the website enforces HTTPS, employs standard security headers, and avoids exposing sensitive data. Privacy and cookie policies are present and indicate GDPR compliance, although explicit security policies and incident response contacts are not published. The WHOIS data is incomplete but the .gov domain and content authenticity strongly support legitimacy. Overall, the site demonstrates a solid security posture and professional digital presence appropriate for a government entity. Recommendations include publishing detailed security policies, vulnerability disclosure information, and incident response contacts to further enhance trust and compliance.

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

6 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

  2. 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';…

  3. 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

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

Keep watching pittsburghpa.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

€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
15
Email security
80
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
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 City of Pittsburgh operates this website as a critical communication and service delivery channel for municipal functions. Its market position as a government entity is clear, with no direct commercial revenue model but a focus on public service and community engagement. The site supports multiple departments and service areas, indicating a complex organizational structure. The presence of multilingual options and extensive service menus suggests a commitment to inclusivity and accessibility. The website's partnership ecosystem includes social media platforms and third-party analytics providers, enhancing outreach and data-driven decision-making. Growth indicators include active event promotion and community programming. Strategic observations highlight the importance of digital transformation in government services and the need for ongoing security and privacy enhancements.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with HTTPS enforcement and multiple security headers such as HSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, and Content-Security-Policy. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive information were detected in the HTML content. However, the absence of a publicly available security policy, vulnerability disclosure program, and incident response contact information represents compliance gaps. Data protection practices appear sound with GDPR-aligned privacy and cookie policies. Incident response readiness cannot be fully assessed due to lack of explicit information. The security culture is implied through the use of modern technologies and best practices but would benefit from greater transparency and formal documentation.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and standards.
  2. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file.
  3. Provide clear incident response contact information for security issues.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and dependencies to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance transparency by including data retention policies and detailed privacy compliance statements.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
City of Pittsburgh
Description
City of Pittsburgh service website where residents can find information on events, news, government, business, and the 311-service request form.
Key services
Resident Services, Recreation & Events, City Government information, Safety services, Business & Development resources
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.7.1, Google Maps JavaScript API, OpenCities CMS, Telerik Web UI
Frameworks
ASP.NET WebForms
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure form handling with anti-forgery tokens
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google Tag Manager for analytics

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Akamai mPulse
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is an official municipal government portal for Pittsburgh, PA
  2. Content is comprehensive and well-structured with multiple service areas
  3. Uses modern web technologies and APIs
  4. Good security posture with HTTPS and security headers
  5. Privacy and cookie policies are present and GDPR compliant
  6. WHOIS data is incomplete, but domain is a .gov indicating government ownership
  7. No signs of adult or questionable content
  8. Social media presence is official and linked
  9. No WAF or blocking detected
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a robust technical foundation using OpenCities CMS and ASP.NET WebForms, integrating modern JavaScript libraries such as jQuery and Google Maps API for enhanced interactivity. The asynchronous loading of fonts and scripts improves performance, though overall speed is moderate. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design breakpoints and accessibility features like skip links and ARIA attributes. SEO is supported through proper meta tags and Open Graph data. Technical debt may exist due to legacy ASP.NET WebForms usage, suggesting opportunities for modernization. Hosting details are not explicit, but integration with Google and Akamai services indicates a reliable infrastructure. Continuous monitoring and performance tuning could further improve user experience.
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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