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Security report for cdc.gov

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · Government · United States

Low risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

76/100

Risk levelLow

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

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) operates as the leading national public health institute in the United States, providing authoritative health information, disease prevention guidance, and outbreak monitoring. The website serves a broad audience including the general public, healthcare professionals, researchers, and policymakers. It is a government agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, offering extensive resources on health topics, vaccination, and public health research. Technically, the CDC website employs modern web technologies such as Bootstrap 5, jQuery, and Google Tag Manager, ensuring a responsive and accessible user experience. The site is well-structured with comprehensive metadata and SEO optimization, supporting efficient navigation and content discovery. The use of sanitization libraries like DOMPurify indicates attention to security in input handling. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and employs best practices such as input sanitization. However, explicit security headers are not detected in the HTML content, suggesting room for improvement. Privacy policies and vulnerability disclosure information are present, reflecting a mature compliance posture. No critical vulnerabilities or suspicious content were identified. Overall, the CDC website demonstrates a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy and security standards. The domain is a .gov domain, which is tightly regulated, further supporting legitimacy. The site is well-positioned to serve its public health mission effectively.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of cdc.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

4 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • 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

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

Keep watching cdc.gov

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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
100
Security headers
30
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
76

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention cdc.gov, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
5,200
Employees
35
Customers
4,933
Third parties
232
Weak passwords
7%

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for cdc.gov.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

CDC holds a dominant position as the primary public health authority in the United States, supported by its government status and extensive resources. Its business model is non-commercial, focused on public service and health promotion. The website supports this mission by providing timely outbreak information, health topic education, and research dissemination. The presence of multiple language options and accessibility features indicates a commitment to inclusivity and broad reach. The CDC's partnership ecosystem includes government entities and public health organizations, although no commercial partners are explicitly linked on the site. The site’s content and structure reflect a stable, mature organization with a clear strategic focus on health security and education.

Security posture

The CDC website exhibits a strong security posture with mandatory HTTPS usage and input sanitization via DOMPurify. The absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options is a minor gap that could be addressed to enhance protection against common web attacks. Privacy and vulnerability disclosure policies are publicly available, indicating organizational awareness of security and compliance requirements. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. The site does not appear to use a security.txt file, which could improve vulnerability reporting. Overall, the security maturity is high, appropriate for a government health agency, with recommendations to tighten header policies and formalize vulnerability disclosure mechanisms.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to enhance browser security.
  2. Introduce a cookie consent mechanism to improve GDPR compliance and user privacy transparency.
  3. Publish a security.txt file at the root domain to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and libraries to ensure no vulnerabilities are introduced.
  5. Enhance accessibility features further to maintain leadership in inclusive public health communication.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Description
CDC is the nation's leading science-based, data-driven, service organization that protects the public's health. CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S.
Key services
Health information dissemination, Disease prevention and control, Public health research, Outbreak monitoring and response, Vaccination recommendations
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Bootstrap 5, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, DOMPurify, QRCode.js
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of secure cookies (implied)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of DOMPurify for sanitizing inputs

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official US government website with .gov domain
  2. Comprehensive health information and outbreak updates
  3. Multiple language support and accessibility features
  4. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  5. Strong branding consistency and professional design
  6. Use of modern web technologies and analytics
  7. No WHOIS data available publicly, typical for government domains
Technical notes

Notes

The CDC website is built on a modern, responsive framework using Bootstrap 5 and jQuery, ensuring compatibility across devices and browsers. The use of Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics supports robust analytics and user behavior tracking. The site employs DOMPurify to sanitize inputs, reducing XSS risks. Performance is moderate, with potential optimization opportunities in image delivery and script loading. The content management system is a specialized CDC Web Content Management System (wcms), tailored for government content needs. SEO and accessibility are well addressed, supporting broad user engagement. Technical risks are minimal, with the main opportunity being the addition of enhanced security headers and formal vulnerability disclosure mechanisms.
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. 71/100Medium26 findingsView report
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