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Security report for sdpublicnotices.com

South Dakota Public Notices · Media · United States

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

64/100

Risk levelMedium

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

South Dakota Public Notices is a specialized media platform operated by the South Dakota News Media Association, providing searchable access to public notices across South Dakota. The website serves a broad audience including the general public, legal professionals, and government entities, positioning itself as a regional leader in public notice dissemination. The business model appears to be based on providing information services, possibly supported by subscriptions or advertising. Technically, the site is built on ASP.NET WebForms with a moderate tech stack including jQuery and Google Tag Manager, delivering a functional and mobile-optimized user experience. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS enabled and domain transfer protections, but lacks DNSSEC and security headers, which are recommended for enhanced security. Privacy compliance is weak due to the absence of privacy and cookie policies. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professionally maintained but would benefit from improved privacy and security practices.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
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

7 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 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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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 sdpublicnotices.com

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

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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
72
Security headers
30
Email security
70
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
64

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 platform occupies a niche in the media sector focused on legal and governmental public notices for South Dakota. Its long domain age and consistent registration data support its credibility. The site leverages partnerships with related public notice domains to expand reach. The business targets a diverse audience requiring access to official notices, which is critical for legal compliance and public awareness. The lack of explicit contact information and privacy policies suggests room for improvement in customer engagement and regulatory compliance. The use of Google Tag Manager indicates some level of marketing and analytics sophistication, though privacy transparency is limited.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a basic to moderate security maturity level. HTTPS is properly implemented, and the domain status clientTransferProhibited protects against unauthorized domain transfers. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options reduces the overall security posture. No evidence of exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries was found, but the use of an older jQuery version (2.2.4) may pose risks if not regularly updated. There is no visible incident response or security policy information, which could hinder effective handling of security events. Compliance with GDPR and other privacy regulations is not evident, increasing potential risk exposure.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to enhance DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Implement standard security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection.
  3. Develop and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to improve regulatory compliance and user trust.
  4. Update JavaScript libraries to the latest secure versions and regularly audit dependencies.
  5. Add clear contact information including security incident response contacts to improve transparency and readiness.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
South Dakota Public Notices
Description
A platform providing access to public notices for South Dakota, operated by the South Dakota News Media Association. It offers searchable public notices including legal, governmental, and community announcements.
Key services
Public notice search, Advanced search for public notices, Access to legal and governmental announcements
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 2.2.4, Modernizr 1.7, Google Fonts, Google Tag Manager, ASP.NET WebForms
Frameworks
ASP.NET WebForms
Platforms
Windows Server (implied by ASP.NET)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
65/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • ClientTransferProhibited domain status

Analytics and tracking

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

Advertising

Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is a public notice platform for South Dakota
  2. Uses ASP.NET WebForms technology
  3. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages found in provided content
  4. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in the HTML content
  5. Good use of structured data (JSON-LD) for SEO
  6. No security headers detected in provided data
  7. HTTPS is enabled
  8. No WAF or blocking detected
  9. Moderate use of tracking via Google Tag Manager
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a legacy ASP.NET WebForms framework, which may limit modernization and scalability. The tech stack includes jQuery 2.2.4 and Modernizr 1.7, indicating some outdated components. Google Fonts and Google Tag Manager are used for styling and analytics respectively. The site is mobile optimized and uses structured data (JSON-LD) for SEO benefits. Hosting details are not explicit but the registrar is Network Solutions, LLC. Performance is moderate with no major issues detected. Accessibility features are basic, and SEO optimization is good with proper meta tags and structured data. Opportunities exist to modernize the tech stack and improve security and privacy implementations.
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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