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Security report for archives.gov

National Archives and Records Administration · Government · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the official U.S. government agency responsible for preserving and providing access to federal records and historical documents. The website serves a broad audience including researchers, veterans, educators, and the general public, offering access to military records, educational resources, and presidential libraries. It holds a strong market position as the authoritative archival institution in the United States. Technically, the website is built on the Drupal CMS platform, utilizing modern web technologies such as Bootstrap, jQuery, and Google Tag Manager. The site demonstrates good performance, mobile optimization, and accessibility features, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure suitable for a large government entity. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and employs standard security headers, with no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. However, it lacks visible cookie consent mechanisms and published security or incident response policies, which are areas for improvement to enhance compliance and transparency. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and content-rich, with a high legitimacy score based on domain registration and business consistency. Strategic recommendations include implementing privacy consent tools, publishing security policies, and enhancing security headers to further strengthen the security posture and privacy compliance.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of archives.gov. View the latest report

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

5 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 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

  3. DNS health

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

    • High

      Unregistered MX Record

      MX record points to unregistered domain: us.etp.fireeyegov.com

      What to do: Remove or fix MX record pointing to unregistered domain

      • RFC 5321 §5.1
      • NIS2 21(2)(i)
      • IR 2024/2690 12.4: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 12.4: Asset inventory
      • NIST CM-8: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-8: System Component Inventory
    • High

      Potential Subdomain Takeover

      Subdomain dev.archives.gov points to unregistered service archives-gov-dev-publicelb-197081278.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com

      What to do: Remove or fix CNAME record to prevent subdomain takeover

      • WSTG-CONF-10
      • NIS2 21(2)(i)
      • IR 2024/2690 12.4: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 12.4: Asset inventory
      • NIST CM-8: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-8: System Component Inventory

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Keep watching archives.gov

This scan found 20 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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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
85
Security headers
55
Email security
70
DNS health
55
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
70

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

NARA operates as a government agency with a clear mandate to preserve U.S. federal records. Its business model is service-oriented, focusing on archival access and educational outreach rather than commercial revenue. The agency maintains partnerships with presidential libraries and archival foundations, enhancing its ecosystem. The website's extensive content and multiple service offerings indicate a large-scale operation with enterprise-level resources. The target customer segments include government employees, veterans, researchers, educators, and the general public. The presence of multiple trusted partner domains and official social media channels supports a robust partnership ecosystem and strong market presence.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, use of security headers, and no detected vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive information. The integration of Google Tag Manager and analytics is managed securely. However, the absence of a visible cookie consent mechanism and lack of published security or incident response policies represent compliance gaps, particularly regarding privacy regulations like GDPR. The site would benefit from publishing a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to improve transparency and incident response readiness. Overall, the security culture appears solid but could be enhanced with better privacy and incident response disclosures.

Recommendations

  1. Implement a cookie consent banner to comply with privacy regulations and improve user transparency.
  2. Publish a comprehensive security policy and incident response contact information on the website.
  3. Add a vulnerability disclosure or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Enhance HTTP security headers by adding Strict-Transport-Security, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and tracking tools to minimize privacy risks.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
National Archives and Records Administration
Description
The National Archives and Records Administration preserves and provides access to the records of the U.S. government, including documents, photos, and historical records.
Key services
Research access to records, Veterans’ military service records, Educational resources, Presidential libraries, Public exhibits and events
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal CMS, Bootstrap CSS framework, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, AddToAny sharing, Crazy Egg tracking
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of Google Tag Manager for controlled script loading
  • No visible vulnerable libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Crazy Egg, DigitalGov Analytics Platform
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Crazy Egg, DigitalGov Analytics Platform
Marketing tools
AddToAny sharing
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official U.S. government archival website with comprehensive content.
  2. Uses Drupal CMS with modern web technologies.
  3. Strong branding and consistent user experience.
  4. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity.
  5. Lacks visible cookie consent mechanism.
  6. No explicit security or incident response policies published.
  7. Good use of analytics and tracking for user behavior insights.
  8. Multiple trusted external and partner domains linked.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal CMS with a modern front-end stack including Bootstrap and jQuery. It uses Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for tracking, along with Crazy Egg for heatmap analytics. The site loads multiple CSS and JS resources efficiently and supports mobile responsiveness and accessibility. Hosting details are not explicitly identified but likely involve government infrastructure or contracted providers. Performance is moderate with room for optimization. The technical implementation is robust, but there is an opportunity to improve privacy compliance and security header configurations.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 69/100 −2Medium29 findingsView report
  2. 71/100Medium23 findingsView report
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