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Security report for cms.gov

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · Government · United States

Low risk. 3 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

79/100

Risk levelLow

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

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a key U.S. federal government agency responsible for administering Medicare, Medicaid, and related healthcare programs. The website serves as a comprehensive resource for beneficiaries, providers, and stakeholders, offering detailed information on enrollment, coverage, regulations, quality programs, and compliance. The site is well-branded with official government indicators and uses a modern Drupal 10 CMS platform with professional design and navigation. Technically, the site employs HTTPS and integrates tag management via Tealium, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure. Security posture is strong with HTTPS and government trust signals, though explicit security headers and incident response contacts are not evident in the provided content. WHOIS data is incomplete, typical for government domains, but does not detract from the site's legitimacy. Privacy and cookie policies are not clearly found in the snippet, suggesting an area for improvement. Overall, CMS.gov is a highly credible, authoritative government website with excellent content quality and user experience.

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. 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

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

Keep watching cms.gov

This scan found 16 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

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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
90
Security headers
65
Email security
88
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
79

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

CMS holds a dominant position in the U.S. healthcare regulatory landscape as the primary federal agency managing Medicare and Medicaid. Its business model is government-funded program administration and regulatory oversight. The website targets a broad audience including beneficiaries, healthcare providers, insurers, and state agencies. CMS leverages partnerships with Medicaid.gov, CHIP.gov, and Healthcare.gov to provide integrated healthcare information. The site’s extensive content and structured navigation support diverse user needs, from enrollment to compliance. The use of Tealium for analytics and tag management indicates a focus on data-driven insights and user engagement. CMS’s enterprise scale and government backing provide strong market stability and influence in healthcare policy and administration.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a solid security foundation with enforced HTTPS and official .gov domain status, which are critical trust factors. However, the absence of visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and others in the provided content suggests room for enhancement to mitigate common web vulnerabilities. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. The lack of a published security.txt or clear incident response contact information limits transparency for vulnerability reporting. Overall, CMS.gov maintains a strong security posture appropriate for a federal agency but should consider publishing explicit security policies and headers to further strengthen defenses and stakeholder trust.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies prominently on the website.
  2. Add standard security headers (Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options) to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  3. Publish a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure and improve incident response transparency.
  4. Provide clear contact information for security incidents and data protection officer details to comply with best practices and regulations.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tag management tools to ensure no vulnerable or privacy-invasive components are included.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Description
CMS is a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that administers the nation's major healthcare programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Key services
Medicare enrollment and coverage information, Medicaid and CHIP resources, Regulations and guidance, Quality and payment programs, Marketplace and private insurance information, Audits and compliance
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, FontAwesome 6.7.2, YouTube iframe API, Tealium Tag Management
Frameworks
Drupal CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
excellent
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Official .gov domain
  • Use of security banners indicating government authenticity

Analytics and tracking

Services
Tealium
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Tealium
Marketing tools
Tealium Tag Management
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 healthcare website with extensive Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace information.
  2. Uses Drupal 10 CMS with modern frontend libraries.
  3. No signs of WAF or content blocking; full content accessible.
  4. No explicit privacy or cookie policy links found in the provided HTML snippet.
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found in the snippet; likely available on other pages.
  6. Strong branding and trust signals consistent with a federal agency.
  7. External links primarily to trusted government and healthcare domains.
  8. Use of Tealium for tag management and analytics indicates professional marketing and tracking practices.
Technical notes

Notes

CMS.gov is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS platform, ensuring maintainability and security updates. The site uses FontAwesome for icons and integrates YouTube iframe API for video content. Tealium tag management is employed for analytics and marketing tags, indicating a sophisticated approach to user tracking and data collection. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features such as screen reader visibility and ARIA labels. Performance is moderate, likely due to the extensive content and scripts. SEO is supported by canonical and shortlink tags, meta viewport, and structured navigation. Hosting details are not explicit but the site’s .gov status implies government infrastructure. Opportunities exist to improve performance and security header implementation to reduce technical risks.
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. 78/100 −2Low24 findingsView report
  2. 80/100Low19 findingsView report
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