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Security report for fda.gov

U.S. Food and Drug Administration · Government · United States

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal government agency responsible for protecting public health through regulation and oversight of food, drugs, medical devices, and related products. The website serves as a comprehensive resource for consumers, industry professionals, and government officials, providing regulatory information, safety alerts, guidance documents, and news updates. The FDA holds a primary market position as the authoritative regulatory body in the United States for these sectors. Technically, the website is built on the Drupal CMS platform, utilizing modern web technologies including Bootstrap for responsive design, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and CrazyEgg for analytics and user behavior tracking. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, though some security headers are missing. The performance is moderate, with asynchronous loading of scripts enhancing user experience. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and links to a vulnerability disclosure policy, indicating a mature security posture. However, explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options are absent, and no incident response contact details are published. Privacy compliance is addressed with a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie information, though no explicit cookie consent mechanism is present. Overall, the FDA website is a highly trustworthy and professional government resource with excellent content quality and business credibility. The incomplete WHOIS data is mitigated by the .gov domain status and consistent branding. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, implementing cookie consent, publishing incident response contacts, and adding a security.txt file to improve transparency and security posture.

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

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 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. 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 SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching fda.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
80
Security headers
55
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
73

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 fda.gov, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
8,594
Employees
0
Customers
8,550
Third parties
44
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 fda.gov.

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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

The FDA operates as a government regulatory agency with a clear mandate to ensure public health safety. Its business model is non-commercial, focusing on regulation, compliance enforcement, and public communication. The website targets a broad audience including consumers, patients, industry stakeholders, health professionals, and government officials. The FDA's market position is dominant and authoritative within the U.S. regulatory landscape. The agency leverages partnerships with other government entities such as HHS and USA.gov, and maintains a strong presence on social media platforms to disseminate information. Growth indicators include ongoing publication of guidance documents, safety alerts, and FDA Voices expert perspectives. The FDA's operations are transparent and supported by extensive public resources.

Security posture

The FDA website demonstrates a solid security foundation with mandatory HTTPS encryption and a linked vulnerability disclosure policy. The absence of key security headers like Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options represents an area for improvement to mitigate risks such as clickjacking and content injection. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected in the HTML content. The use of Google Tag Manager and analytics scripts is configured with limited ad personalization, reducing privacy risks. The lack of explicit incident response contact information and security.txt file reduces transparency for security researchers. Overall, the security maturity is good but can be enhanced by adopting additional HTTP security headers and formalizing incident response communication.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Add a cookie consent mechanism to comply fully with GDPR and enhance user privacy transparency.
  3. Publish explicit incident response contact information to improve security communication and trust.
  4. Create and host a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and analytics tools to minimize privacy and security risks.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Description
The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.
Key services
Regulation and oversight of food safety, Drug approval and monitoring, Medical device regulation, Safety alerts and recalls, Guidance documents publication, Public health communication
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics (gtag.js), CrazyEgg, Drupal CMS, Universal-Federated-Analytics, Bootstrap
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Platforms
Drupal
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 Google Tag Manager with limited ad personalization
  • Vulnerability disclosure policy linked

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Universal-Federated-Analytics, CrazyEgg
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Ad networks
CrazyEgg
Tracking pixels
Universal-Federated-Analytics
Marketing tools
CrazyEgg
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 with .gov TLD
  2. Comprehensive public health and regulatory content
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  4. Good use of modern web technologies and analytics
  5. Missing some security headers and explicit cookie consent
  6. WHOIS data incomplete but domain legitimacy supported by .gov status
Technical notes

Notes

The FDA website is built on Drupal CMS with Bootstrap framework, ensuring responsive and accessible design. It uses modern analytics tools such as Google Analytics and CrazyEgg for user behavior insights. The site loads scripts asynchronously to optimize performance, though overall speed is moderate likely due to the volume of content and external resources. The HTML is well-structured with appropriate meta tags for SEO and social sharing (Open Graph and Twitter cards). Accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA labels are implemented, supporting compliance with accessibility standards. Technical risks include missing security headers and reliance on multiple third-party scripts which require ongoing monitoring. Opportunities exist to enhance performance and security through header improvements and script optimization.
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. 73/100Medium25 findingsView report
  2. 73/100 +25Medium25 findingsView report
  3. 48/100High23 findingsView report
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