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Security report for fda.gov

U.S. Food and Drug Administration · Healthcare · 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) website serves as the official digital presence of the federal agency responsible for regulating food, drugs, medical devices, and other health-related products in the United States. The site provides comprehensive information on regulatory guidance, safety alerts, recalls, and public health initiatives targeting consumers, industry professionals, and government officials. The FDA holds a dominant market position as the primary regulatory authority in its sector, supported by its affiliation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Technically, the website is built on a modern Drupal CMS platform, leveraging frameworks like Bootstrap for responsive design and integrating analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Crazy Egg for user behavior insights. The site demonstrates excellent performance, mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, ensuring a high-quality user experience. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS with strong SSL configuration and follows best practices in securing forms and data transmission. While explicit security headers are not visible in the HTML, it is likely they are implemented at the server level. The site also links to a vulnerability disclosure policy hosted by HHS, indicating a mature security posture. No critical vulnerabilities or suspicious content were detected. Overall, the FDA website exhibits a high level of professionalism, trustworthiness, and compliance with privacy and security standards. It effectively balances public information dissemination with regulatory transparency and user engagement, making it a reliable resource for its diverse audience.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of fda.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 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 protect public health. Its business model is non-commercial, focusing on regulatory oversight, compliance enforcement, and public education. The website targets a broad audience including consumers, patients, healthcare professionals, industry stakeholders, and government officials. The FDA's competitive advantage lies in its authoritative status and comprehensive regulatory scope. The agency maintains strong partnerships within the federal government ecosystem, as evidenced by links to HHS and USA.gov. The website's content and structure support ongoing growth in public engagement and transparency, reinforcing the FDA's role as a trusted health authority.

Security posture

The FDA website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS encryption and secure form handling. The presence of a vulnerability disclosure policy and links to HHS security resources indicate organizational commitment to security best practices. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were identified in the HTML content. However, explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options were not visible and should be confirmed. Incident response contact details are not explicitly published, representing a minor gap. Overall, the site is secure with room for minor improvements in header implementation and incident response transparency.

Recommendations

  1. Confirm and explicitly implement security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options to enhance protection against common web attacks.
  2. Implement a visible cookie consent mechanism to improve GDPR compliance and user privacy transparency.
  3. Publish clear incident response contact information or security@ email addresses to facilitate vulnerability reporting and incident management.
  4. Add a security.txt file at the root domain to standardize vulnerability disclosure communication.
  5. Regularly audit third-party scripts and analytics tools to ensure no vulnerabilities or privacy issues arise from external dependencies.
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
Safety alerts and recalls, Guidance documents, Public health information and education, Compliance and enforcement actions
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal CMS, Google Tag Manager, Crazy Egg, DigitalGov Universal Analytics, Web Vitals JS
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
excellent
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure search form with GET method and proper labeling
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of official government domains and certificates

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, DigitalGov Universal Analytics, Crazy Egg
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Crazy Egg
Tracking pixels
Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager, DigitalGov Universal Analytics
Marketing tools
Crazy Egg
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 TLD
  2. Comprehensive public health and regulatory content
  3. Well-structured navigation and accessible design
  4. Use of modern web technologies and analytics
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  6. No WHOIS data available publicly, consistent with .gov domain privacy policies
  7. No WAF or blocking detected
  8. Strong trust and security indicators
Technical notes

Notes

The FDA website is built on Drupal CMS with Bootstrap framework, ensuring responsive and accessible design. It integrates multiple analytics and tracking tools including Google Tag Manager, Crazy Egg, and DigitalGov Universal Analytics. The site loads quickly and is optimized for mobile devices. The HTML is valid and well-structured with comprehensive meta tags supporting SEO and social sharing. No technical debt or deprecated technologies were detected. The site benefits from government hosting infrastructure, likely providing robust uptime and security. Opportunities exist to enhance security headers and formalize incident response 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. 73/100Medium25 findingsView report
  2. 73/100 +25Medium25 findingsView report
  3. 48/100High23 findingsView report
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