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Security report for fda.gov

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

High risk. 7 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view, SSL/TLS and 1 other check.

Security score

48/100

Risk levelHigh

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

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) operates as the primary federal regulatory agency responsible for ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of food, drugs, medical devices, and other related products in the United States. The website serves as an authoritative source of information for consumers, industry professionals, and government officials, providing regulatory guidance, safety alerts, and public health communications. It is positioned as a trusted government entity with a comprehensive content offering and consistent branding. Technically, the website is built on the Drupal CMS platform, hosted behind Akamai's network, and utilizes modern web technologies including Google Tag Manager and DigitalGov Analytics for tracking and performance insights. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, contributing to a positive user experience and professional design quality. From a security perspective, while several important HTTP security headers are implemented (such as HSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options), the site currently lacks a valid SSL/TLS certificate and does not support modern TLS protocols. This represents a critical security vulnerability that undermines the confidentiality and integrity of user communications. Additionally, no cookie consent mechanism was detected, which may impact privacy compliance. Overall, the FDA website is a highly credible and authoritative government resource with excellent content and user experience. However, the absence of valid HTTPS and cookie consent mechanisms are significant security and privacy gaps that should be addressed promptly to enhance trust and compliance.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
0/ 100 · Critical
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

7 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 Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • 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

  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 fda.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.

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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
0
Security headers
55
Email security
50
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
0
Average
48

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.

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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 holds a dominant market position as the U.S. federal agency regulating food and drug safety, serving a broad audience including consumers, healthcare professionals, industry stakeholders, and government officials. Its business model is non-commercial, focused on regulatory oversight and public health protection. The website supports this mission by providing extensive regulatory information, safety alerts, guidance documents, and communication channels. The FDA leverages partnerships with other government entities such as HHS and USA.gov, and maintains a strong presence on major social media platforms to extend its outreach. The agency's operations reflect a mature, enterprise-scale organization with a clear mandate and trusted reputation. Revenue streams are not applicable as it is a government entity; however, its digital presence supports transparency, compliance, and public engagement. The website's technical infrastructure and analytics usage indicate a commitment to data-driven decision making and continuous improvement.

Security posture

The FDA website demonstrates a moderate security maturity level with implementation of key HTTP security headers and HSTS with preload, which are best practices for protecting against common web attacks. However, the lack of a valid SSL certificate and absence of TLS protocol support are critical vulnerabilities that expose users to potential interception and data compromise. The site also lacks OCSP stapling and session resumption features, which could improve security and performance. No known vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed or POODLE were detected. Privacy compliance is partial; while a comprehensive privacy policy exists, no cookie consent mechanism was found, which may not fully satisfy GDPR or similar regulations. Incident response contact information is not explicitly provided on the site. Overall, the security posture requires urgent improvement in SSL/TLS configuration and privacy mechanisms to align with modern standards and user expectations.

Recommendations

  1. Install and maintain a valid SSL/TLS certificate to enable HTTPS and secure user communications.
  2. Enable modern TLS protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) and configure strong cipher suites to enhance encryption strength.
  3. Implement a cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply with privacy regulations and inform users about tracking.
  4. Enable OCSP stapling and session resumption to improve SSL performance and security.
  5. Publish clear incident response contact information and consider adopting recognized security frameworks such as NIST or ISO 27001.
Technical notes

Notes

The FDA website is powered by Drupal CMS and served via nginx web server, hosted behind Akamai's content delivery network. It integrates Google Tag Manager and DigitalGov Analytics for tracking and performance monitoring, and uses Crazy Egg for user behavior analytics. The site is mobile optimized with responsive design and includes accessibility features such as skip links and ARIA roles. Meta tags and Open Graph data are well implemented for SEO and social sharing. However, the SSL/TLS configuration is invalid or missing, which is a critical technical risk. Performance data was not available, but the use of CDN and modern technologies suggests moderate to good performance. The site architecture is well structured with clear navigation and comprehensive content sections.
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. 73/100Medium25 findingsView report
  3. 73/100Medium25 findingsView report
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