State Websites Could Be Vulnerable to Hackers: Government Cybersecurity Under the Microscope
Government websites at the state and local level across North Carolina handle enormous volumes of citizen data, from tax returns and driver's license information to health records and voter registration details. Security experts, including Craig Petronella of Petronella Technology Group (PTG), warn that many of these public-sector digital platforms carry vulnerabilities that sophisticated attackers could exploit, putting millions of North Carolinians at risk.
The Public Sector's Growing Cybersecurity Crisis
Government websites and digital infrastructure represent some of the most attractive targets in the entire cybersecurity landscape. These systems hold the personal information of millions of citizens, process financial transactions, manage critical public services, and serve as the digital face of government institutions that citizens must trust. When a state website is compromised, the damage extends beyond the immediate data loss to fundamentally undermine public confidence in government's ability to protect its constituents.
North Carolina state and local government websites face unique challenges that make them particularly susceptible to attack. Budget constraints force agencies to operate with outdated technology platforms and understaffed IT departments. Procurement processes that prioritize cost over security features often result in systems that lack essential protections from the start. The sheer number of websites and applications operated by state agencies, county governments, municipalities, school districts, and public utilities across the Raleigh-Durham metro, the Research Triangle Park region, and beyond creates an enormous attack surface that is nearly impossible to monitor comprehensively with limited resources.
The threats targeting government websites are both diverse and persistent. Nation-state actors probe government systems for intelligence gathering and potential disruption. Cybercriminals target the vast databases of personal information for identity theft and fraud. Hacktivists deface government sites to make political statements. Ransomware operators view government agencies as high-value targets because of the pressure to restore public services quickly, making agencies more likely to pay ransoms. These threats converge on digital platforms that were often built years ago using security standards that are now obsolete, creating a dangerous gap between the sophistication of the attacks and the strength of the defenses.
Where Government Websites Fall Short on Security
Craig Petronella, founder of Petronella Technology Group and a cybersecurity expert with over 22 years of experience serving organizations across the Research Triangle, identifies several critical areas where government websites commonly fail to meet modern security standards. These vulnerabilities are not theoretical. They represent real, exploitable weaknesses that attackers actively probe for and leverage to gain unauthorized access to government systems and the citizen data they contain.
The first major concern is the prevalence of outdated web application frameworks and content management systems running on government websites. Many state and local government sites operate on platforms that have not received security updates in years, or worse, platforms that vendors have entirely stopped supporting. These end-of-life systems contain known vulnerabilities that are publicly documented in vulnerability databases, making exploitation trivially easy for attackers who simply need to match a known exploit to the detected platform version. PTG regularly encounters government-adjacent systems in the Triangle region running software that is two, three, or even five major versions behind current releases.
The second area of concern involves inadequate input validation and web application security controls. Government websites that accept citizen data through online forms, such as tax filing portals, permit applications, complaint submission systems, and voter registration platforms, must rigorously validate and sanitize every piece of input to prevent injection attacks, cross-site scripting, and other web application vulnerabilities. Petronella notes that many government sites lack these basic protections, making them susceptible to attacks that have been well-understood and preventable for over a decade.
Third, Petronella highlights the absence of comprehensive security monitoring on government web platforms. Many government websites operate without real-time intrusion detection, without web application firewalls, and without the logging and alerting infrastructure needed to detect when an attack is in progress. Without these monitoring capabilities, compromises can persist for extended periods while attackers exfiltrate citizen data or establish persistent access for future operations. PTG advocates for continuous monitoring of all public-facing government systems as a baseline requirement, not a luxury that agencies cannot afford.
Finally, the lack of regular security testing represents a systemic risk across government web platforms. Vulnerability assessments and penetration testing should be conducted at minimum annually, and more frequently for high-value systems that handle sensitive citizen data. PTG's experience shows that many government agencies in the North Carolina area have never conducted a formal penetration test of their web infrastructure, or conducted one years ago and never followed up to verify that identified vulnerabilities were actually remediated. This creates a false sense of security that leaves agencies and their citizens exposed to preventable attacks.
Common Security Weaknesses in Government Digital Platforms
Outdated Software & Unpatched Systems
Government websites frequently run on outdated content management systems, web servers, and application frameworks that no longer receive security patches from their vendors. Budget cycles that stretch procurement over months or years mean that even when replacement systems are approved, the vulnerable platforms continue operating during the transition. Attackers specifically scan for known vulnerable versions of popular government platforms like Drupal, WordPress, and legacy custom applications. When they find an unpatched system, exploitation can be automated and scaled across hundreds of targets simultaneously. PTG has identified instances where government-adjacent organizations in the Research Triangle Park area were running web servers with critical vulnerabilities that had publicly available exploit code, meaning any attacker with basic skills could have compromised the system. The solution requires dedicated patch management processes with shortened timelines for critical security updates on all public-facing systems.
Weak Authentication & Access Controls
Many government websites rely on single-factor authentication for administrative access, meaning that a stolen or guessed password is all an attacker needs to gain full control of the site and its data. Administrative panels are often accessible from the public internet rather than restricted to internal network connections or VPN access. Default credentials from initial installation are sometimes never changed, leaving backdoors that attackers can walk through without any technical sophistication at all. Citizen-facing portals that handle sensitive transactions, like tax filing or benefits applications, may lack multi-factor authentication options that would protect residents from account takeover attacks. PTG recommends that all government web platforms implement multi-factor authentication for both administrative and citizen access, restrict administrative interfaces to authorized network segments, and implement account lockout policies that prevent brute-force password guessing.
SQL Injection & Input Validation Flaws
SQL injection vulnerabilities allow attackers to manipulate database queries through web forms and URL parameters, potentially extracting entire databases of citizen information with a single attack. Despite being one of the oldest and most well-documented web vulnerability categories, SQL injection continues to plague government websites because of inadequate input validation, the use of legacy code that predates modern security practices, and insufficient security testing. Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities are similarly prevalent, allowing attackers to inject malicious code into government web pages that then executes in citizens' browsers, potentially stealing session credentials or redirecting users to phishing sites that mimic the legitimate government page. PTG's web application security assessments routinely identify these vulnerabilities in public-sector platforms across North Carolina, and the organization advocates for comprehensive web application firewall deployment and regular code security reviews for all government digital services.
SSL/TLS Misconfigurations
Encryption of data in transit between citizens' browsers and government websites is fundamental to protecting sensitive information submitted through online forms and portals. Yet PTG's analysis has found government websites with expired SSL certificates, outdated encryption protocols that are known to be broken, improper certificate chain configurations that trigger browser warnings, and mixed content issues that load some page elements over unencrypted connections. These misconfigurations either prevent encryption from functioning properly or train citizens to ignore security warnings, both of which create exploitable conditions for man-in-the-middle attacks. When a citizen submits their Social Security number, driver's license number, or financial information through a government portal with weak encryption, that data can potentially be intercepted by attackers positioned on the network path. Government agencies must maintain current SSL certificates, implement the latest TLS protocols, and enable HTTP Strict Transport Security to ensure all communications are properly encrypted.
Insufficient Monitoring & Logging
Without comprehensive monitoring and logging, government agencies cannot detect when their websites are being probed, attacked, or actively compromised. Many government web platforms lack web application firewalls that would identify and block attack patterns in real time. Server logs, when they exist, are often not aggregated, analyzed, or reviewed by security personnel. Alert mechanisms are absent, meaning that even obvious attack indicators, like thousands of failed login attempts or massive data exfiltration, generate no notifications to security staff. This monitoring gap means that breaches of government websites can persist for weeks, months, or even years before discovery, allowing attackers to continuously harvest citizen data. PTG recommends implementing Security Information and Event Management solutions for all government web infrastructure, deploying web application firewalls on every public-facing site, and establishing 24/7 monitoring of security events through dedicated or managed security operations services.
Third-Party & Supply Chain Risks
Government websites often rely heavily on third-party components, plugins, libraries, and vendor-managed hosting services that introduce security risks outside the agency's direct control. A vulnerable JavaScript library included on a government page can compromise every citizen who visits the site. A hosting provider with weak security practices can expose government data regardless of how well the website itself is secured. Third-party analytics, advertising, and social media integration scripts create additional attack vectors that many agencies do not monitor or manage. Recent supply chain attacks targeting widely used software libraries have demonstrated that even well-maintained systems can be compromised through their dependencies. PTG advises government agencies to maintain a complete inventory of all third-party components, monitor those components for known vulnerabilities, implement Content Security Policies that restrict which scripts can execute on their pages, and conduct security reviews of all hosting and service providers that handle government data.
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919-348-4912Government Vulnerabilities Affect Every Sector
Government website vulnerabilities do not exist in isolation. When state and local government platforms are compromised, the stolen citizen data fuels attacks against private-sector businesses across every industry. A breach of a state tax portal exposes information that attackers use to target banking relationships. Compromised voter registration data enables sophisticated social engineering campaigns against businesses. Healthcare providers, financial firms, and technology companies throughout Raleigh, Durham, and the Research Triangle Park corridor are all affected when government systems fail to protect the data they share with public agencies. PTG works with both public and private sector organizations to build holistic security programs that account for these interconnected risks.
Public Sector Security Demands Proven Expertise
Securing government-facing digital platforms requires a partner that understands both the technical complexity of modern web security and the unique operational constraints of public-sector organizations. Petronella Technology Group brings 22 years of experience working with organizations across the Research Triangle, including public-sector adjacent entities that must meet the same rigorous security standards as government agencies themselves. PTG's team holds CEH and CompTIA Security+ certifications that validate deep expertise in the specific security domains that matter for government web platform protection.
PTG's approach to government web security is grounded in frameworks that public-sector organizations recognize and trust, including NIST Cybersecurity Framework, NIST 800-53 security controls, and CIS benchmarks. Our assessments and recommendations map directly to these established standards, making it straightforward for agencies to justify investments and demonstrate compliance. With over 2,500 organizations served and zero recorded breaches across all managed clients, PTG delivers the track record of proven protection that government stakeholders need to see before entrusting their web security to an outside partner. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, PTG provides responsive local support to agencies across Wake County, Durham County, Orange County, and throughout the Triangle region, combined with the global threat intelligence needed to defend against nation-state and international criminal threats.
Government Website Security Questions Answered
Protect Public Trust With Proven Cybersecurity Expertise
Government agencies and the businesses that serve them need security partners with proven track records. Petronella Technology Group has protected over 2,500 organizations with zero recorded breaches across 22 years. Whether you operate a government agency, serve as a government contractor, or simply want to ensure your business is protected against threats enabled by public-sector vulnerabilities, call PTG at 919-348-4912 for a comprehensive security assessment. Serving Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, RTP, and the entire Triangle region of North Carolina.