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Security report for sec.gov

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

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

72/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) operates the website www.sec.gov as the official federal government portal for securities regulation, investor protection, and market oversight. The site provides comprehensive resources including filings search, rulemaking activities, enforcement news, and educational materials targeted at investors, businesses, and market participants. The SEC is a large, enterprise-level government agency with a long-standing history dating back to 1934, reflected in the authoritative and professional content presented on the site. Technically, the website is built on the Drupal CMS platform, leveraging the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) for accessibility and responsive design. It integrates modern analytics and tracking tools such as Google Tag Manager and YouTube APIs, ensuring a rich user experience with fast performance and excellent mobile optimization. The site is hosted likely on government infrastructure or via Akamai CDN, ensuring reliability and security. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS and demonstrates good security practices including secure forms and no visible vulnerabilities. While explicit security headers were not fully confirmed in the provided content, the overall posture is strong, consistent with a government entity. Privacy and cookie policies were not explicitly found in the provided HTML snippet, which slightly impacts privacy compliance scoring. Overall, the SEC website is a highly credible, trustworthy, and professionally maintained government resource. It effectively serves its mission to protect investors and maintain market integrity. Strategic recommendations include publishing explicit privacy and cookie policies prominently, ensuring all security headers are set, and maintaining vigilance on third-party scripts to uphold security standards.

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

5 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

  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 sec.gov

This scan found 19 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
80
Security headers
35
Email security
80
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
72

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 sec.gov, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
714
Employees
0
Customers
648
Third parties
66
Weak passwords
13%

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 sec.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

The SEC holds a dominant market position as the primary U.S. federal regulator for securities markets. Its business model is regulatory and enforcement-focused, funded by government appropriations. The website targets a broad audience including investors, public companies, legal professionals, and the general public. Key services include EDGAR filings access, rulemaking transparency, enforcement updates, and investor education. The SEC's partnership ecosystem includes related government sites such as investor.gov and EDGAR filing portals. Growth indicators are tied to regulatory developments and market activity. The SEC's operations are transparent and mission-driven, with a strong emphasis on compliance and market fairness.

Security posture

The SEC website exhibits a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, secure form handling, and use of official .gov domain which inherently carries trust and regulatory oversight. No exposed sensitive data or vulnerable libraries were detected. The site integrates third-party analytics responsibly but should ensure continuous monitoring of these scripts. Privacy compliance is moderate due to lack of explicit privacy and cookie policies in the analyzed content. Incident response and security policy details were not found, which is common for government sites but could be improved for transparency. Overall, the site is secure and trustworthy with minor areas for enhancement.

Recommendations

  1. Publish clear and comprehensive privacy and cookie policies accessible from the homepage.
  2. Implement and explicitly document security headers such as X-Frame-Options and X-Content-Type-Options.
  3. Regularly audit and update third-party scripts to mitigate supply chain risks.
  4. Enhance transparency by providing incident response contact information or security policy details.
  5. Maintain and improve accessibility and mobile optimization to serve diverse user groups.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Description
Founded to help our country respond to the Great Depression, the SEC protects investors from misconduct, promotes fairness & efficiency in the securities markets, and facilitates capital formation for those looking to hire, innovate, and grow.
Key services
Regulation and enforcement of securities laws, EDGAR filings and data access, Investor education and protection, Rulemaking and compliance guidance
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal CMS, Google Tag Manager, YouTube iframe API, USWDS (U.S. Web Design System)
Frameworks
Drupal
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
excellent
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of official .gov domain
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with proper labels

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

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. Content is comprehensive and focused on securities regulation
  3. No signs of blocking or WAF challenges
  4. Uses modern web technologies and USWDS for accessibility
  5. Strong security posture with HTTPS and secure forms
  6. No privacy or cookie policy explicitly found in provided HTML snippet
  7. WHOIS data is privacy protected or unavailable, typical for government domains
  8. No suspicious or malicious content detected
Technical notes

Notes

The SEC website is built on Drupal CMS with integration of USWDS for design consistency and accessibility. It uses Google Tag Manager and YouTube APIs for analytics and media embedding. Hosting appears to be government-managed or via Akamai CDN, ensuring high availability and performance. The site demonstrates fast loading times, excellent mobile responsiveness, and good SEO practices with proper meta tags and structured data. Technical debt appears minimal, with modern frameworks and libraries in use. Opportunities exist to enhance security header implementation and privacy compliance documentation.
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. 67/100 −5Medium27 findingsView report
  2. 72/100Medium25 findingsView report
  3. 75/100Medium17 findings · partial scanView report
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