va.gov

Readiness by lane

Green: va.gov. Thin bar: Government Services peer median.

Priority fixes for va.gov

Ordered by impact and by how common each practice is among peers.

1. Priority 1 · Harden

   TLS 1.3 negotiated

   Observed: The TLS connection negotiated TLSv1.2.

   Why it matters: TLS 1.3 removes legacy cipher suites and completes the handshake in fewer round trips, so it is both safer and faster for new connections.

   What to do: Enable TLS 1.3 on your CDN or server. Keep TLS 1.2 available for older clients unless you have checked your audience.

   77% of Government Services peers do this. Limit: Certificate and protocol were observed from one vantage point; CDNs can present different certificates by region.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

2. Priority 2 · Accelerate

   HTTP/2 negotiated

   Observed: The TLS handshake selected HTTP/1.1 instead of HTTP/2.

   What to do: Enable HTTP/2 on your CDN or server. Most CDNs do this by default.

   55% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: CDN Guide for Website Owners

3. Priority 3 · Accelerate

   Static files cached for 30 days or more

   Observed: A same-site stylesheet or script was cacheable for no max-age, short of the 30-day benchmark.

   What to do: Give versioned (fingerprinted) CSS, JavaScript, fonts and images Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable, and change the file name whenever the content changes.

   30% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: Browser Caching Guide for Website Owners

4. Priority 4 · Accelerate

   No render-blocking scripts in <head>

   Observed: The homepage <head> loaded 1 external script without async or defer.

   What to do: Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.

   On Next.js: Use the next/script component with an appropriate loading strategy.

   39% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page

What va.gov already does well

Practices fewer than half of Government Services peers use.

• security.txt publishedsecurity.txt with a contact found.8% of peers
• DNSSEC signedDNSSEC delegation (DS record) present.19% of peers
• Reachable over IPv6IPv6 address published.27% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.va.gov/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.2

Certificate

Sectigo, 394-day validity, expiring 2027-01-18

Platform or framework

Next.js

DNS operators

1 self-run or other nameserver domain

HSTS

max-age 365 days, includeSubDomains, preload

DMARC policy

p=reject

Homepage HTML

121 KB, gzip

Images on homepage

7 (png 10, svg 3, jpg 1)

Limits: homepage only, one location, one moment. Header checks reflect the homepage response; other pages may differ.

Stack and providers

Seen in the homepage response, certificate and DNS. Provider pages compare how their customers configure the same checks.

All 31 checks

Select a gap for the method and fix. How each check works

Compare with other Government Services sites

• barcelona.cat61
• sistemaspnp.com62
• trf2.jus.br62
• trt4.jus.br62
• vlaanderen.be62

Government Services readiness benchmark