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Security report for ttb.gov

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau · Government · United States

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

Security score

75/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is a federal government agency under the United States Department of the Treasury responsible for regulating and enforcing laws related to alcohol and tobacco products. The website serves as an authoritative source for regulatory information, licensing, tax collection, and trade practices enforcement. It targets businesses in the alcohol and tobacco industries, government entities, and the general public seeking compliance guidance. The site is well-branded, professionally designed, and provides comprehensive content relevant to its mission. Technically, the website is built on Drupal 10 CMS, leveraging modern web technologies including Akamai CDN for performance, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity, and DigitalGov Analytics for user behavior tracking and analytics. The site demonstrates excellent mobile optimization, accessibility, and SEO practices, ensuring a positive user experience across devices. From a security perspective, the site enforces HTTPS with strong SSL configuration and implements key security headers to protect users. However, it lacks a dedicated security policy page, incident response contacts, and a vulnerability disclosure program, which are recommended for enhancing transparency and security posture. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. Overall, the website is a trustworthy and authoritative government resource with a strong security baseline and good privacy compliance. Strategic improvements in security transparency and incident response readiness would further strengthen its posture.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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

      SSL Certificate Expires Soon

      SSL certificate expires in 10 days

      What to do: Renew SSL certificate before expiration

      • NIS2 21(2)(h)
      • IR 2024/2690 9.2(c): Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690, Annex point 9.2(c): Cryptography
      • NIST SC-17: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-17: Public Key Infrastructure Certificates

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

Keep watching ttb.gov

This scan found 18 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

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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
85
Security headers
55
Email security
70
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
75

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

TTB holds a unique market position as a federal regulatory authority with exclusive jurisdiction over alcohol and tobacco trade and taxation. Its business model is regulatory and compliance-focused, funded by government appropriations and tax collections. The agency's key services include licensing, enforcement, tax administration, and public education. The website supports these functions by providing accessible information and digital services. The presence of official branding, .gov domain, and comprehensive policies underscores its credibility. The agency's partnerships are primarily governmental and industry-related, though no explicit partner domains were identified on the site. The site’s content and structure indicate a mature, enterprise-level operation with a focus on regulatory compliance and public service.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, strong SSL/TLS configuration, and implementation of multiple security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security, and X-Frame-Options. The absence of exposed sensitive data and secure handling of forms further support its security maturity. However, the lack of a published security policy, incident response contact information, and vulnerability disclosure program represents gaps in transparency and user trust. The use of third-party analytics and tracking scripts is moderate and appears compliant with privacy standards. Overall, the site is secure but could benefit from enhanced security communication and formal vulnerability management disclosures.

Recommendations

  1. Publish a dedicated security policy page outlining security practices and user guidance.
  2. Provide clear incident response contact information, including security@ or abuse@ email addresses.
  3. Implement and publicize a vulnerability disclosure program and add a security.txt file.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and tracking tools to minimize privacy and security risks.
  5. Enhance transparency around data retention policies and user privacy controls.

Contact details published on the site

Addresses
Legal name
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau
Description
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury responsible for enforcing federal laws and regulations related to alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. It provides regulatory oversight, tax collection, and trade practice enforcement.
Key services
Regulation enforcement, Tax collection, Trade practice monitoring, Licensing and permitting
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
Drupal 10, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity, YouTube iframe API, Akamai CDN, Boomerang performance monitoring
Frameworks
Drupal CMS
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of security headers
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with proper input types

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, DigitalGov Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Microsoft Clarity, Google Analytics (via GTM), DigitalGov Analytics
Marketing tools
Microsoft Clarity
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Official US government website with .gov TLD
  2. Uses modern CMS (Drupal 10) and CDN (Akamai)
  3. Comprehensive privacy and cookie policies present
  4. No WAF or blocking detected, full content accessible
  5. No security.txt or explicit security policy page found
  6. Moderate use of analytics and tracking scripts
  7. Content focused on regulation of alcohol and tobacco
  8. No suspicious or malicious content detected
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a modern Drupal 10 CMS platform, ensuring up-to-date content management capabilities and security patches. It uses Akamai CDN for fast content delivery and integrates multiple analytics tools including Google Tag Manager and Microsoft Clarity for user behavior insights. The site is mobile-optimized with responsive design and accessibility features consistent with government standards. Performance monitoring is implemented via Boomerang scripts. The technical infrastructure is robust and well-maintained, supporting a high-quality user experience. Opportunities exist to improve technical documentation of security policies and incident handling procedures to align with 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. 75/100Medium26 findingsView report
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