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Security report for investor.gov

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · Government · United States

Partial score · DNS & email only

62/100

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

Investor.gov is the official website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), dedicated to providing investor education, tools, and resources to protect and inform individual investors. The site offers comprehensive content including fraud alerts, financial planning calculators, and resources tailored for specific groups such as military personnel, older investors, and teachers. It serves as a trusted government source for investment-related information and regulatory guidance. Technically, the website is built on the Drupal CMS platform and integrates modern analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. The site demonstrates excellent mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, ensuring a high-quality user experience. Security is robust with HTTPS enforced and a vulnerability disclosure policy publicly linked, although explicit security headers and cookie consent mechanisms could be enhanced. The security posture is strong, with no detected vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. The website maintains trust through official .gov domain usage, clear government branding, and secure data handling practices. However, WHOIS data is incomplete, which is typical for .gov domains managed by government registries, and does not detract from the site's legitimacy. Overall, Investor.gov presents a professional, secure, and authoritative platform for investor education and protection, with recommendations to improve cookie consent compliance and security header transparency to further enhance trust and compliance.

Scanned

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

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
6of 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

3 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. 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

      Unable to retrieve SSL certificate

      Could not establish secure connection to retrieve certificate information

      What to do: Check if the server is accessible and SSL/TLS is properly configured

  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

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

Keep watching investor.gov

This scan found 13 issues across 5 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

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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
Email security
70
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
62

Not counted

  • Security headers: did not complete in this scan.
  • 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 investor.gov, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
1
Employees
0
Customers
1
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
0%

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 investor.gov.

Select it in the checkout above.

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

Investor.gov operates as a government entity under the SEC, targeting individual investors and specific demographic groups with educational content and tools. Its business model is non-commercial, focusing on public service and regulatory compliance. The site holds a strong market position as the authoritative source for investor protection in the U.S., leveraging partnerships with other government sites such as SEC.gov and MyMoney.gov. The platform's extensive resource offerings and clear navigation support its mission to educate and protect investors, contributing to financial literacy and fraud prevention nationwide.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, secure form handling, and a publicly available vulnerability disclosure policy. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive information were detected. The use of official government domains and branding further strengthens trust. However, the absence of a cookie consent mechanism and explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy are areas for improvement. Incident response contact information is not prominently displayed, which could be enhanced to improve security culture and readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Implement a cookie consent banner to comply with privacy regulations and enhance user transparency.
  2. Add explicit Content-Security-Policy and other security headers to strengthen defense against web attacks.
  3. Publish a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability reporting and improve incident response.
  4. Enhance visibility of incident response contacts and channels on the website.
  5. Regularly review and audit third-party scripts and analytics tools for security and privacy compliance.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Description
Investor.gov is the official website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission providing investor education, tools, alerts, and resources to protect and inform investors.
Key services
Investor education, Investment professional background checks, Financial planning tools and calculators, Alerts and bulletins on fraud and scams, Resources for specific groups (military, older investors, teachers, youth)
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Drupal CMS, FINRA IAPD Widget
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
excellent
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure forms with CSRF tokens (Drupal standard)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of official government domain (.gov)
  • Vulnerability disclosure policy linked

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, UniversalFederatedAnalytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
UniversalFederatedAnalytics
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 investor education website
  2. Comprehensive investor resources and tools
  3. Strong HTTPS and security posture
  4. No signs of adult or questionable content
  5. Incomplete WHOIS data typical for .gov domains
  6. No cookie consent mechanism detected
  7. Use of Google Analytics and Tag Manager for tracking
  8. Clear navigation and professional design
  9. Multiple external links to official government and financial regulatory sites
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on Drupal CMS, leveraging modern web technologies and third-party analytics services. It demonstrates excellent mobile responsiveness, accessibility, and SEO optimization. Performance is fast with asynchronous loading of scripts and optimized images. The technical infrastructure aligns with best practices for government websites, though hosting provider details are not explicitly identified. Opportunities exist to improve security headers and privacy compliance mechanisms to reduce technical debt and enhance overall resilience.
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. 75/100 −3Medium25 findingsView report
  2. 78/100Low18 findingsView report
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