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Security report for govinfo.gov

U.S. Government Publishing Office · Government · United States

Medium risk. 9 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

55/100

Risk levelMedium

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

GovInfo is the official public access portal operated by the U.S. Government Publishing Office, providing free and authoritative access to government publications from all three branches of the federal government. The website serves a broad audience including the general public, researchers, and government officials, positioning itself as a trusted source for official government documents. The business model is a government service focused on transparency and public dissemination of information. Technically, the site is built on Drupal 10 CMS with Bootstrap 5 for responsive design, leveraging modern web technologies such as jQuery and FontAwesome. The site demonstrates good mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, although performance is moderate. The infrastructure appears stable and professionally maintained, consistent with a large government enterprise. From a security perspective, the site uses HTTPS and shows no signs of exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries. However, the absence of visible security headers and lack of published privacy, cookie, or incident response policies indicate areas for improvement. The WHOIS data is unavailable, likely due to government privacy policies, but the .gov domain and official branding strongly support legitimacy. Overall, GovInfo presents a secure, professional, and trustworthy government information portal with excellent content quality and user experience. Strategic enhancements in privacy compliance documentation, security header implementation, and incident response transparency would further strengthen its security posture and user trust.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 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

9 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  2. 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 Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

  3. GDPR outside view

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

    • 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

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

Keep watching govinfo.gov

This scan found 26 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
57
Security headers
30
Email security
40
DNS health
70
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
55

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 govinfo.gov, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
192
Employees
0
Customers
143
Third parties
49
Weak passwords
27%

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 govinfo.gov.

Select it in the checkout above.

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

GovInfo operates as a critical government service under the U.S. Government Publishing Office, providing official federal publications to the public. Its market positioning is unique as an authoritative government source, with no direct commercial competitors. The business model is non-commercial, focused on public service and transparency. Revenue streams are government-funded. The target customer segments include citizens, legal professionals, researchers, and government employees. Growth indicators are tied to government mandates for transparency and digital access. The partnership ecosystem is limited to government agencies and technology providers supporting the platform. Operationally, the site reflects a mature, stable government digital service with consistent branding and content quality.

Security posture

The security maturity level of GovInfo is moderate to high, with HTTPS enforced and no visible sensitive data leaks. The lack of security headers such as Content Security Policy, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options suggests room for improvement in defense-in-depth. No vulnerabilities or malware indicators were detected in the provided content. Compliance gaps include missing privacy and cookie policies, which are important for GDPR and other regulations. Incident response readiness is unclear due to absence of contact channels for security issues. The security culture appears professional but could benefit from enhanced transparency and published security practices. Overall, the site is secure but should address compliance and header implementation to improve resilience.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie policy with consent mechanisms to improve compliance.
  2. Add security headers including Content Security Policy, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and Referrer-Policy to enhance security posture.
  3. Publish a security.txt file or vulnerability disclosure page with clear incident response contact information.
  4. Ensure WHOIS data is complete and publicly accessible where appropriate to improve transparency.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and frameworks to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
U.S. Government Publishing Office
Description
GovInfo is a service of the U.S. Government Publishing Office providing free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
Key services
Access to government publications, Search and retrieval of official documents, Public dissemination of government information
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, jQuery, Bootstrap 5, FontAwesome, Google Fonts (Lato, Roboto)
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
75/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS usage implied by govinfo.gov domain
  • No exposed sensitive data found in HTML

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Transparency
poor

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 domain
  2. Uses modern Drupal 10 CMS and Bootstrap 5 framework
  3. No WHOIS data available publicly, likely due to government privacy policies
  4. No visible privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages detected in provided HTML
  5. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in HTML content
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure information found
  7. No advertising or tracking scripts detected
  8. Content is safe and suitable for general audiences
  9. Website is mobile optimized and accessible
  10. No WAF or blocking detected, full content accessible
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses a modern technology stack centered on Drupal 10 CMS, Bootstrap 5 for responsive design, and jQuery for client-side scripting. Google Fonts and FontAwesome provide typography and iconography. The site is mobile optimized and accessible, with good SEO meta tags including Open Graph and Twitter cards. Performance is moderate, likely due to the complexity of government content and Drupal overhead. There is no evidence of legacy or vulnerable libraries. Technical risks include missing security headers and incomplete privacy documentation. Opportunities exist to modernize security practices and enhance user privacy transparency.
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. 65/100 −3Medium30 findingsView report
  2. 68/100Medium25 findingsView report
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