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Security report for arts.gov

National Endowment for the Arts · Government · United States

Low risk. 3 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

78/100

Risk levelLow

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

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent federal agency dedicated to funding, promoting, and strengthening the creative capacity of communities across the United States. The website serves as a comprehensive portal for information on grants, initiatives, news, and impact related to arts and culture. It targets a broad audience including artists, nonprofit organizations, educators, policymakers, and the general public interested in arts participation and cultural development. The NEA holds a strong market position as a government entity with nationwide influence and a long history since its founding in 1965. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10 CMS and incorporates modern web technologies such as Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for tracking and analytics. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, although some improvements could be made in security headers and cookie consent mechanisms. Performance is moderate with a professional and consistent design that enhances user experience. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS with a strong SSL configuration and avoids exposing sensitive data. However, it lacks certain security headers and a formal vulnerability disclosure policy, which are recommended for enhanced security posture. The WHOIS data is unavailable or privacy protected, which is typical for government .gov domains, and does not raise legitimacy concerns given the official nature of the site. Overall, the NEA website is a trustworthy, well-maintained government resource with excellent content quality and business credibility. Strategic recommendations include implementing security headers, adding cookie consent for privacy compliance, and publishing a vulnerability disclosure policy to further strengthen security and trust.

Scanned

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

3 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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

  2. 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

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

Keep watching arts.gov

This scan found 19 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
67
Security headers
80
Email security
85
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
78

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 NEA operates as a government agency providing grants and support to arts organizations and individuals nationwide. Its competitive advantage lies in its federal backing, extensive grant programs, and authoritative role in arts policy and research. Revenue streams are primarily government appropriations, with no commercial sales. The target customers include nonprofit arts organizations, artists, educators, and the general public. Growth indicators include ongoing grant awards, new initiatives, and active public engagement through stories and social media. The agency maintains partnerships with state arts agencies and cultural institutions. Operationally, the NEA emphasizes transparency, accessibility, and impact measurement, positioning itself as a key player in the U.S. arts ecosystem.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS and no visible exposure of sensitive information. The absence of security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents a moderate gap that could be exploited in certain attack scenarios. The lack of a cookie consent mechanism and vulnerability disclosure policy indicates areas for compliance and transparency improvement. No known vulnerabilities or malicious content were detected. Incident response contact information is not prominently provided, which could delay reporting and mitigation of security incidents. Overall, the site is secure but would benefit from adopting additional best practices to enhance defense-in-depth and regulatory compliance.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Add a cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and improve user transparency.
  3. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting of security issues.
  4. Enhance visibility of incident response contacts or security-related communication channels on the website.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking tools to minimize privacy risks and ensure compliance.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
National Endowment for the Arts
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
National Endowment for the Arts
Description
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.
Key services
Grant awards to nonprofit organizations and artists, Arts education partnerships, Research and impact studies, Public engagement and storytelling, Honors and awards programs
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Modernizr
Frameworks
Drupal CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
excellent
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of modern libraries

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Universal Federated Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Universal-Federated-Analytics-Min.js
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 website for the National Endowment for the Arts
  2. Comprehensive content about grants, initiatives, news, and impact
  3. Strong social media presence on major platforms
  4. Uses Drupal CMS with modern web technologies
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  6. No visible security headers detected in HTML source
  7. No cookie consent mechanism present
  8. WHOIS data is privacy protected or unavailable but domain is .gov
  9. Contact information includes phone number and physical address in Washington, DC
  10. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found
Technical notes

Notes

The NEA website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS platform, ensuring a robust content management infrastructure. The use of Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics indicates a mature approach to analytics and user behavior tracking. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, adhering to best practices for inclusive design. Performance is moderate, with room for optimization in loading speed and resource management. The absence of certain security headers and cookie consent mechanisms suggests some technical debt in security and privacy compliance areas. Hosting details are not explicitly identified, but the .gov domain implies government-managed infrastructure. Overall, the technical foundation is solid with opportunities for incremental improvements.
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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