Skip to main content

Security report for nsa.gov

National Security Agency/Central Security Service · Government · United States

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

70/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a U.S. government agency specializing in signals intelligence and cybersecurity. The website serves as an official portal providing comprehensive information about NSA's mission, leadership, cybersecurity initiatives, signals intelligence, research, and collaboration with various stakeholders including the Defense Industrial Base. The site is well-positioned as a trusted source of national security information with a strong digital presence and official government branding. Technically, the website leverages a mature technology stack including ASP.NET with DotNetNuke CMS, jQuery, Bootstrap, and FontAwesome. It is hosted by the Defense Media Activity, ensuring government-grade hosting and security. The site demonstrates good performance, mobile optimization, and accessibility features, supporting a broad audience including government officials, researchers, and the public. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and uses secure coding practices with no visible vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data. However, it lacks explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and HSTS, which could further enhance its security posture. Privacy compliance is basic, with a privacy policy present but no cookie consent mechanism detected, likely due to government exemptions. Overall, the NSA website is a high-quality, authoritative government resource with strong business credibility and trustworthiness. The lack of WHOIS data is typical for government domains and does not detract from its legitimacy. Strategic recommendations include enhancing security headers, improving privacy compliance transparency, and maintaining rigorous third-party script audits to sustain its security and trust.

Scanned

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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

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

    • 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

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

Keep watching nsa.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.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. See sample alerts.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
85
Security headers
30
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
70

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

NSA holds a dominant position as the primary U.S. government agency for cryptology, signals intelligence, and cybersecurity. Its business model is government-funded, focusing on national defense and intelligence gathering. The agency collaborates extensively with military, government partners, academia, and industry to advance cybersecurity and cryptologic capabilities. The website reflects a mature digital ecosystem supporting outreach, recruitment, and public transparency. NSA's partnership ecosystem includes other government entities such as the Department of Defense, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and intelligence community organizations. The site’s content and structure indicate a focus on education, collaboration, and operational support, reinforcing NSA's strategic role in national security.

Security posture

The NSA website demonstrates a strong security posture with mandatory HTTPS, secure hosting, and no visible exposure of sensitive information. The use of government hosting and official .gov domain adds to its trustworthiness. However, the absence of explicit security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and HSTS represents an area for improvement. No incident response or vulnerability disclosure contacts are explicitly provided, which is common for government sites but could be enhanced for transparency. The site uses modern libraries and frameworks but should ensure continuous monitoring for vulnerabilities in third-party components. Overall, the security maturity is high but can benefit from adopting additional best practices.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and HSTS to strengthen defense-in-depth.
  2. Introduce or clearly link to a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to improve transparency and incident response readiness.
  3. Enhance privacy compliance by adding a cookie consent mechanism or clear cookie usage disclosures aligned with privacy regulations.
  4. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts and libraries to mitigate risks from vulnerable dependencies.
  5. Maintain consistent and accessible contact channels for security and privacy inquiries to foster trust and responsiveness.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
National Security Agency/Central Security Service
Description
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both signals intelligence insights and cybersecurity products and services that enables computer network operations to gain a decisive advantage for the nation and our allies.
Key services
Signals Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Cryptology, Research, Collaboration with Defense Industrial Base
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery, jQuery UI, Bootstrap, FontAwesome, Google Fonts, Google Tag Manager, DigitalGov Web Vitals, ASP.NET WebForms
Frameworks
ASP.NET
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure cookies (implied by HTTPS)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of CSP or other headers not detected explicitly

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Universal-Federated-Analytics
Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Google Analytics (gtag.js), Universal-Federated-Analytics
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 website with .gov domain
  2. Comprehensive content about NSA mission, cybersecurity, signals intelligence
  3. Well-structured navigation and accessible design
  4. Use of modern web technologies and frameworks
  5. No signs of malicious or suspicious content
  6. WHOIS data is restricted or unavailable, typical for government domains
  7. Social media presence on major platforms with verified accounts
  8. No cookie consent banner detected, possibly due to government exemption
  9. No explicit privacy or incident response email addresses found except general contact email
Technical notes

Notes

The NSA website is built on a mature ASP.NET framework using DotNetNuke CMS, supported by jQuery, Bootstrap, and FontAwesome for UI and interactivity. Hosting is provided by Defense Media Activity, ensuring government-grade infrastructure. The site loads moderate resources including external fonts and analytics scripts, balancing performance and functionality. Mobile responsiveness and accessibility are well addressed, with skip links and ARIA labels present. SEO is supported by meta tags and structured data in JSON-LD format. Technical debt appears low, but modernization opportunities include adopting newer JavaScript frameworks and enhancing security headers. Overall, the technical infrastructure is robust and suitable for a high-profile government site.
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

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with nsa.gov. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review nsa.gov.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.