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Security report for nasa.gov

NASA · Government · United States

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

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

NASA is the United States government agency responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. The website serves as the official portal providing the latest news, multimedia, and educational resources related to space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research. It targets a broad audience including the general public, educators, students, and researchers. The site is well-positioned as a leading authoritative source in its domain with a comprehensive content offering and strong brand presence. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with modern web standards, including the use of Google Tag Manager, reCAPTCHA v3, and the U.S. Web Design System for accessibility and responsive design. The site demonstrates excellent performance, SEO optimization, and mobile usability, reflecting a mature digital infrastructure. From a security perspective, NASA's website employs HTTPS with strong SSL configuration and security headers. It uses reCAPTCHA to protect forms and does not expose sensitive data. However, explicit security policies and incident response information are not prominently published, and no vulnerability disclosure program is evident. Overall, the website presents a low risk with high trustworthiness, supported by its official .gov domain and consistent content quality. Strategic recommendations include publishing detailed security policies, establishing a vulnerability disclosure program, and enhancing security contact information to further strengthen trust and compliance.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of nasa.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 nasa.gov

This scan found 22 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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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
65
Security headers
45
Email security
80
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
71

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

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

NASA operates as a government agency with a clear mandate in space exploration and research. Its market position is unique as the primary U.S. space agency, with no direct commercial competitors but significant collaboration with international partners and private aerospace companies. The business model focuses on public service, research, and education rather than commercial revenue. The website supports this by providing extensive educational content, news, and multimedia resources. Partnerships with domains like plus.nasa.gov and science.nasa.gov indicate a robust ecosystem for content delivery and public engagement. Growth indicators include ongoing missions and multimedia expansion. The agency maintains a strong brand and public trust through consistent messaging and authoritative content.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a strong security posture with enforced HTTPS, modern security headers, and protection against automated abuse via reCAPTCHA. No exposed sensitive information or vulnerable libraries were detected in the analyzed content. However, the absence of a publicly available security policy, incident response plan, or vulnerability disclosure program represents a gap in transparency and readiness communication. The site would benefit from publishing these documents and providing dedicated security contact channels to improve incident handling and community trust. Overall, the security maturity is high but could be enhanced with better policy visibility and formal vulnerability management.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response plan on the website.
  2. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program or security.txt file.
  3. Add explicit security contact information such as security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and plugins to mitigate vulnerabilities.
  5. Maintain continuous monitoring and update CMS and plugins promptly to reduce risk.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
NASA
Description
NASA.gov brings you the latest news, images and videos from America's space agency, pioneering the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.
Key services
Space exploration, Scientific discovery, Aeronautics research, Public education and outreach
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 6.7.2, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, reCAPTCHA v3, USWDS (U.S. Web Design System) fonts and styles
Frameworks
USWDS
Platforms
WordPress
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
excellent

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of reCAPTCHA v3 on forms
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Security headers present

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Parsely, DigitalGov Analytics Program
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Parsely, DigitalGov Analytics Program
Transparency
good

Site quality

Design
excellent
User experience
excellent
Content relevance
excellent
Navigation
excellent
Professionalism
excellent
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Official US government space agency website
  2. Comprehensive and well-structured content
  3. Strong SEO and accessibility practices
  4. Use of modern web technologies and analytics
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity
  6. No WHOIS data available publicly, typical for government domains
Technical notes

Notes

NASA's website uses WordPress CMS version 6.7.2 with integration of Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for tracking and analytics. The site employs reCAPTCHA v3 for form protection and uses the U.S. Web Design System for consistent styling and accessibility compliance. Performance is optimized with preloading of fonts and images, and the site is mobile responsive with good accessibility features. SEO is enhanced with comprehensive meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data. No hosting provider details were explicitly found, but the site is likely hosted on government infrastructure. The technical stack is modern and well-maintained, supporting a high-quality user experience and robust content delivery.
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. 61/100Medium27 findingsView report
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