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Security report for faa.gov

Federal Aviation Administration · Government · United States

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

60/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website serves as the official online presence of the U.S. federal agency responsible for regulating and overseeing all aspects of civil aviation. The site provides comprehensive information and services related to aircraft certification, air traffic control, airport safety, pilot certification, drone regulation, and commercial space launches. It targets aviation professionals, government stakeholders, and the general public interested in aerospace safety and regulations. The FAA holds a dominant market position as the primary U.S. aviation authority and operates under the U.S. Department of Transportation. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10 CMS and integrates modern web technologies including Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and FontAwesome. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices. Hosting appears to be government-managed or via Akamai CDN. Performance is moderate with no critical technical issues detected. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS with strong SSL configuration and employs IP anonymization in analytics. However, it lacks visible security headers and does not provide explicit security or incident response policies. No cookie consent mechanism is present despite the use of tracking scripts, indicating partial privacy compliance. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. Overall, the FAA website is a highly credible, professional, and trustworthy government resource with excellent content quality and user experience. Strategic improvements in privacy compliance, security policy transparency, and cookie consent would enhance its security posture and regulatory adherence.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
28/ 100 · High
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. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS encryption

      GDPR requires appropriate security measures for personal data

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS

    • 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.

    • Critical

      No HTTPS Encryption

      Website does not use HTTPS encryption, making all data transmission vulnerable to interception

      What to do: Implement SSL/TLS certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS

  3. 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';…

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Keep watching faa.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

€25per month

  • 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
0
Security headers
60
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
28
Average
60

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

FAA operates as an essential government entity in the transportation sector, providing regulatory oversight and operational services for the U.S. aerospace system. Its business model is non-commercial, focused on public safety and infrastructure management. The FAA's market position is authoritative and monopolistic within its domain. The website supports multiple stakeholder groups including pilots, air traffic controllers, drone operators, and commercial space entities. The FAA benefits from strong brand recognition, government backing, and extensive service offerings. Its partnership ecosystem includes the U.S. Department of Transportation and related aviation and space agencies. The site’s content and navigation reflect a mature digital presence aligned with federal standards.

Security posture

The FAA website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS and SSL encryption, anonymized analytics tracking, and secure form input validation. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security reduces defense-in-depth. The lack of a published security policy or incident response contact limits transparency and user trust in security incident handling. Privacy compliance is partial due to missing cookie consent mechanisms despite active tracking. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were found, indicating good operational security hygiene. Overall, the FAA maintains a solid but improvable security stance consistent with government standards.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a comprehensive security policy and incident response page to improve transparency and user trust.
  2. Add a cookie consent banner/mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and inform users about tracking.
  3. Deploy security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  4. Consider publishing a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  5. Regularly review and update third-party scripts and analytics configurations to minimize privacy risks and maintain compliance.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Federal Aviation Administration
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Federal Aviation Administration
Description
The Federal Aviation Administration is an operating mode of the U.S. Department of Transportation, providing the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.
Key services
Aircraft Certification, Air Traffic Control, Airport Safety and Improvement, Pilot and Airmen Certification, Drone Regulation and Education, Commercial Space Launch Licensing, Aviation Data and Research
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, FontAwesome, js-cookie, jQuery UI Autocomplete
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • IP anonymization in Google Analytics
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with validation patterns

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Digital Analytics Program (DAP)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Digital Analytics Program (DAP)
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 aviation authority website with comprehensive aviation-related content.
  2. Uses multiple Google Analytics and Tag Manager IDs for tracking and analytics.
  3. No visible privacy cookie consent banner despite tracking scripts.
  4. No explicit terms of service or security policy pages found in the HTML content.
  5. Contact information is prominently displayed with phone and physical address.
  6. Multiple forms present for aircraft and airport status lookup with input validation.
  7. Social media presence on major platforms with official FAA accounts.
  8. Website built on Drupal 10 CMS with modern frontend technologies.
  9. No signs of WAF or content blocking; full content accessible.
Technical notes

Notes

The FAA website is built on Drupal 10 CMS, leveraging modern frontend libraries including FontAwesome and jQuery UI for UI components. It integrates multiple Google Analytics and Tag Manager IDs for comprehensive data collection. The site is hosted on a government or Akamai CDN infrastructure, ensuring reliable delivery. Performance is moderate with room for optimization. The site is fully responsive and optimized for mobile devices, with good accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA labels. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags and structured navigation. Technical risks are minimal but could be further reduced by implementing advanced security headers and privacy controls.
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. 61/100Medium25 findingsView report
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