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Security report for provinciegroningen.nl

Provincie Groningen · Government · Netherlands

Low risk. No critical or high findings.

Security score

86/100

Risk levelLow

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

Provincie Groningen operates as the official governmental body for the Groningen province in the Netherlands, providing a comprehensive digital platform for residents and stakeholders to access information on subsidies, permits, projects, policies, and news. The website serves as an authoritative source for regional governance and public services, targeting local citizens, businesses, and governmental partners. The business model is public service-oriented, focusing on transparency and accessibility of governmental functions. Technically, the website is built on the TYPO3 CMS platform, leveraging modern web technologies including jQuery UI, Google reCAPTCHA for form security, and Matomo for privacy-conscious analytics. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, with a moderate performance profile. Integration of a custom site search and social media links enhances user engagement and content discoverability. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and employs reCAPTCHA to protect forms from abuse. Cookie consent mechanisms and a comprehensive privacy policy indicate strong GDPR compliance. However, the absence of explicit security policies, incident response information, and security headers suggests room for improvement in formal security posture documentation and technical hardening. Overall, Provincie Groningen's website is a well-maintained, trustworthy digital presence for a governmental entity, with solid content quality and compliance. Strategic enhancements in security transparency and header implementation would further strengthen its security posture and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
83/ 100 · Low
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

No critical or high findings. These medium findings are worth fixing next.

  1. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • Medium

      Privacy policy may not be GDPR compliant

      Privacy policy lacks explicit GDPR compliance elements

      What to do: Update privacy policy to explicitly address GDPR requirements and user rights

  2. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Medium

      No MTA-STS Policy

      MTA-STS enforces TLS for email delivery

      What to do: Implement MTA-STS to prevent downgrade attacks

  3. 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.

  4. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • Medium

      DNSSEC Not Enabled

      DNSSEC is not configured for this domain

      What to do: Enable DNSSEC to prevent DNS spoofing attacks

      • CAPEC-142
      • RFC 4033
      • RFC 4035
    • Medium

      Domain Transfer Lock Not Enabled

      Domain can be transferred without authorization

      What to do: Enable domain transfer lock for security

Keep watching provinciegroningen.nl

This scan found 14 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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  • 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
90
Email security
80
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
83
Average
86

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

Provincie Groningen holds a stable market position as the official provincial government entity, providing essential public services and information to the Groningen region. Its competitive advantage lies in authoritative content, comprehensive service offerings including subsidies and permits, and active engagement through news and social media. The business model is non-commercial, focused on governance and public administration. Revenue streams are government-funded. Target customers include residents, local businesses, and governmental stakeholders. Growth indicators include ongoing project updates and digital service enhancements. Partnerships with technology providers like OpenCii and Eend indicate a collaborative ecosystem supporting digital infrastructure. The website reflects a mature operational state with consistent branding and professional content.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of Google reCAPTCHA to mitigate automated abuse, and a cookie consent banner supporting privacy compliance. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. However, the lack of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and absence of a published security policy or incident response plan represent gaps in formal security governance. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file was found, limiting transparency for security researchers. Overall, the site is secure for typical user interactions but would benefit from enhanced security documentation and technical header implementation to align with best practices and regulatory frameworks such as NIS2 and ISO 27001.

Recommendations

  1. Implement HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to improve technical security posture.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to increase transparency and preparedness.
  3. Add a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Include contact information for a Data Protection Officer or security contact to enhance compliance and trust.
  5. Regularly review and update 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
Provincie Groningen
Description
Provincie Groningen is the governmental body for the Groningen province in the Netherlands, providing information on subsidies, permits, projects, policies, and news relevant to the region.
Key services
Subsidies information and application, Permit applications, Project updates, Policy documents and news dissemination, Public contact and reporting
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
TYPO3 CMS, jQuery UI, Google reCAPTCHA, Matomo Analytics, OpenIndex site search
Frameworks
TYPO3
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Google reCAPTCHA for forms
  • Cookie consent banner implemented
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Services
Matomo
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Matomo
Marketing tools
Matomo Analytics, OpenIndex site search
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 professionally presented and relevant to the provincial government audience
  3. Use of modern CMS TYPO3 and integration of analytics and search tools
  4. Privacy and cookie policies are present and GDPR compliant
  5. Contact information is clearly provided with multiple channels
  6. No explicit security policy or incident response information found
  7. No terms of service page detected
  8. Social media presence is active across major platforms
  9. No suspicious or malicious external domains detected
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on TYPO3 CMS, a robust open-source content management system widely used in government and enterprise sectors. It integrates jQuery UI for UI components, Google reCAPTCHA for bot mitigation, and Matomo for privacy-focused analytics. The site uses a custom site search powered by OpenIndex. Performance is moderate with compressed CSS and JS assets, though no explicit hosting provider was identified. The site is mobile optimized and accessible with skip links and ARIA roles. SEO is supported by proper meta tags and Open Graph data. Technical debt appears low, but the absence of security headers and explicit hosting details suggests opportunities for infrastructure modernization and enhanced security hardening to reduce risk and improve resilience.
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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