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Security report for sba.gov

U.S. Small Business Administration · Government · United States

High risk. 4 critical or high findings in DNS health, Security headers and 1 other check.

Security score

49/100

Risk levelHigh

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

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is a federal government agency dedicated to supporting America's small businesses by providing access to funding, counseling, disaster assistance, and federal contracting opportunities. The website serves as a comprehensive portal for entrepreneurs and small business owners to access resources, learn about SBA programs, and connect with local assistance partners. The SBA holds a strong market position as the official government entity for small business support in the United States, targeting a broad audience of small business stakeholders. Technically, the SBA website is built on Drupal 10 and leverages modern web technologies including the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS), Google Tag Manager, and Facebook Pixel for analytics and marketing. The site is mobile-optimized, accessible, and well-structured, providing a professional user experience. However, some security best practices such as explicit security headers and cookie consent mechanisms could be improved. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and does not expose sensitive data in the HTML. The lack of visible security headers and absence of a vulnerability disclosure policy are areas for enhancement. The WHOIS data is incomplete, likely due to .gov domain registry policies, but the domain and content strongly indicate legitimacy and trustworthiness. Overall, the SBA website presents a low-risk profile with strong business credibility and good technical implementation. Strategic recommendations include adding security headers, implementing cookie consent, and publishing incident response and vulnerability disclosure information to further enhance trust and compliance.

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. DNS health

    DNS sends visitors and email to the right servers. Misconfigured records can cause outages or let someone redirect your traffic.

    • Critical

      Domain Expired

      Domain expired 9 days ago

      What to do: Renew domain registration 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 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';…

  3. 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 sba.gov

This scan found 17 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.

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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
100
Security headers
70
Email security
80
DNS health
30
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
72
After the cap
49

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 · found on this site
  • 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

The SBA operates as a government agency providing essential services to small businesses across the United States. Its business model revolves around facilitating access to capital, counseling, disaster recovery loans, and federal contracting opportunities. The SBA's competitive advantage lies in its official government status, extensive network of local assistance partners, and comprehensive educational resources. Revenue streams are government-funded, focusing on public service rather than profit. The target customer segments include entrepreneurs, small business owners, veterans, minorities, and underserved communities. Growth indicators include expanded digital learning platforms and specialized initiatives such as onshoring support. The SBA maintains partnerships with various federal and local organizations to extend its reach and impact.

Security posture

The SBA website demonstrates a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS usage and secure handling of user inputs in forms. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options reduces the overall security hardening. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. Compliance with privacy regulations is indicated by a comprehensive privacy policy, though the lack of a cookie consent banner suggests partial GDPR compliance. Incident response and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are not publicly documented, which could impact transparency and responsiveness. Overall, the security culture appears strong but could benefit from enhanced visibility of security policies and controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  2. Add a visible cookie consent mechanism to comply fully with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
  3. Publish a dedicated incident response and vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to improve transparency and user trust.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking pixels to minimize privacy risks and ensure compliance.
  5. Enhance WHOIS data transparency if possible or provide official domain registration information on the website.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
U.S. Small Business Administration
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
U.S. Small Business Administration
Description
The SBA supports America's small businesses by connecting entrepreneurs with lenders and funding to help them plan, start, and grow their business.
Key services
Business counseling, SBA-guaranteed business loans, Disaster loans, Federal government contracting assistance, Educational events and learning platform
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, USWDS (U.S. Web Design System)
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
moderate
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
excellent
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure .gov domain
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with required fields

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Tag Manager, Universal Federated Analytics (digitalgov.gov)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Facebook Pixel
Marketing tools
Facebook Pixel
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is an official U.S. government site (.gov)
  2. Content is comprehensive and well-structured for small business support
  3. No signs of phishing or malware
  4. No cookie consent mechanism detected despite privacy policy presence
  5. WHOIS data is incomplete but likely due to .gov domain registry policies
  6. Social media presence is consistent with official SBA accounts
  7. No visible security headers in HTML but HTTPS is enforced
  8. No vulnerability disclosure or incident response info publicly available
Technical notes

Notes

The SBA website is built on Drupal 10, a modern and widely supported CMS, ensuring a robust content management framework. It uses the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) for consistent government-standard UI/UX design. Analytics and marketing are managed through Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixel, indicating a mature digital marketing infrastructure. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, adhering to federal accessibility standards. Performance is moderate, with room for optimization in loading speed. The absence of visible security headers and cookie consent mechanisms represents technical debt that should be addressed to improve security and compliance posture. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports the SBA's mission effectively but can be enhanced for security and privacy best practices.
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. 78/100Low23 findingsView report
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