Infrastructure - https://usccb.org BeaverCheck Audit

B

URL Variants

www/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPS

REVIEW

www/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPS

Both www and non-www versions serve content

Got: Both variants return 200 Expected: One variant 301-redirects to the other

HTTP correctly 301-redirects to HTTPS

www / non-www

200https://www.usccb.org/

200https://usccb.org/

Inconsistent — duplicate content risk

HTTP → HTTPS

301http://usccb.org/ → https://usccb.org/

Consistent

B

TLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations

30 days until leaf cert expires — 5 issues to address

REVIEW

Certificate validity

30

days left

0d 30d 60d 90d+

Recommended actions

Renew certificate — 30 days remaining
Extend HSTS max-age to at least 31536000 (1 year) to meet the preload list criteria
Add the preload directive and submit to hstspreload.org once max-age + includeSubDomains are in place
Enable DNSSEC on your domain for DNS spoofing protection
Enable OCSP stapling on your TLS server to remove a CA roundtrip and protect user privacy

A

DNS Records

1 A records, 259 ms lookup

PASS

1 A records, 259 ms lookup

Resolves to 1 IPv4 address(es)

Got: 23.185.0.2

Single A record — no DNS redundancy

Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.

Has 2 IPv6 (AAAA) record(s)

Got: 2620:12a:8001::2, 2620:12a:8000::2

2 nameserver(s) configured

Got: auth2.dns.cogentco.com, auth1.dns.cogentco.com

2 mail exchanger(s) configured

CAA records not checked

CAA record lookup requires a specialized DNS resolver. This check will be available in a future update.

SPF record present in TXT

DNS resolution is slow (259 ms)

Slow DNS adds latency to every page load. Consider a faster DNS provider.

Got: 259 ms

A	23.185.0.2
AAAA	2620:12a:8001::2, 2620:12a:8000::2
CNAME	—
NS	auth2.dns.cogentco.com, auth1.dns.cogentco.com
MX	10 us-smtp-inbound-1.mimecast.com 10 us-smtp-inbound-2.mimecast.com
TXT	096bf7c6bb2d4c3c88e46947ee39c3bb 5pns9ingpnj6fuel4sltd8b55k lp3pag54ci05ib8kkuuk4pfajv MS=ms25189928 fia1mbv3r8tqs2rgpbgev9n91r rm6cmtnglgqsms2bn7kapbnfq5 v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCy+nfit1w631FF4J+fj/Cz/B... W/ULlPHDJzNCtBnlXy/Mz+GtBvureRIpw8dokQibemHTTlyzM1eQg0YnP/r+B2gulQwOHdYCmUDQOoVx... SPF v=spf1 redirect=usccb.org.hosted.spf-report.com
CAA	Lookup not available with standard resolver

Resolved in 259 ms

Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.

Why this matters

Single A record means a single point of failure — if that IP goes down, your site is unreachable until DNS TTL expires.

Learn more ▾

Add multiple A records for round-robin failover, or use a managed DNS provider with health-checked failover (Route 53, Cloudflare, NS1). Short TTL (60-300s) lets clients recover faster on outages.

Source: SRE practice / DNS architecture

CAA record lookup requires a specialized DNS resolver. This check will be available in a future update.

Why this matters

Informational: CAA (Certification Authority Authorization) records weren't checked in this scan.

Slow DNS adds latency to every page load. Consider a faster DNS provider.

Why this matters

DNS resolution is slow — anycast DNS providers (Cloudflare, Route 53) typically resolve <50ms globally.

Source: DNS performance benchmarks

A

Redirect Chain

1 redirect(s), 385 ms total

PASS

1 redirect(s), 385 ms total

Single redirect

Got: https://usccb.org → https://www.usccb.org/ (301)

WWW normalization redirect

https://usccb.org

272 ms · HTTP/1.1

301

https://www.usccb.org/

112 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL

#	URL	Status	Time	Protocol	Server
1	https://usccb.org	301	272 ms	HTTP/1.1	nginx
2	https://www.usccb.org/	200	112 ms	HTTP/1.1	nginx

See the visual redirect chain in the HTTP Probe tab →

A+

IPv6 Readiness

IPv6 reachable (1 ms)

PASS

IPv6 reachable (1 ms)

IPv6 is configured and reachable at 2620:12a:8001::2, 2620:12a:8000::2

Got: 1 ms connect

IPv6 Ready

AAAA Records 2620:12a:8001::2, 2620:12a:8000::2 Connection Reachable (1 ms)

A+

Crawlability

robots.txt present, sitemap with 15 URLs

PASS

robots.txt present, sitemap with 15 URLs

robots.txt is present

Got: 1794 bytes

sitemap.xml is present

sitemap.xml is valid XML

sitemap.xml contains 15 entries

Sitemap index with 15 child sitemaps

robots.txt does not reference a sitemap

Add a 'Sitemap:' directive to robots.txt so search engines can discover your sitemap.

Why this matters

robots.txt omits Sitemap: directive — crawlers must fetch /sitemap.xml by convention; reliable but missing the explicit hint.

Source: sitemaps.org

robots.txt 200 OK

Size 1794 B Sitemaps referenced 0 User-agents * Blocking No — crawling allowed

#
# robots.txt
#
# This file is to prevent the crawling and indexing of certain parts
# of your site by web crawlers and spiders run by sites like Yahoo!
# and Google. By telling these "robots" where not to go on your site,
# you save bandwidth and server resources.
#
# This file will be ignored unless it is at the root of your host:
# Used:    http://example.com/robots.txt
# Ignored: http://example.com/site/robots.txt
#
# For more information about the robots.txt standard, see:
# http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html

User-agent: *
# CSS, JS, Images
Allow: /core/*.css$
Allow: /core/*.css?
Allow: /core/*.js$
Allow: /core/*.js?
Allow: /core/*.gif
Allow: /core/*.jpg
Allow: /core/*.jpeg
Allow: /core/*.png
Allow: /core/*.svg
Allow: /profiles/*.css$
Allow: /profiles/*.css?
Allow: /profiles/*.js$
Allow: /profiles/*.js?
Allow: /profiles/*.gif
Allow: /profiles/*.jpg
Allow: /profiles/*.jpeg
Allow: /profiles/*.png
Allow: /profiles/*.svg
# Directories
Disallow: /core/
Disallow: /profiles/
# Files
Disallow: /README.txt
Disallow: /web.config
# Paths (clean URLs)
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /comment/reply/
Disallow: /filter/tips/
Disallow: /node/add/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /user/register/
Disallow: /user/password/
Disallow: /user/login/
Disallow: /user/logout/
# Paths (no clean URLs)
Disallow: /index.php/admin/
Disallow: /index.php/comment/reply/
Disallow: /index.php/filter/tips/
Disallow: /index.php/node/add/
Disallow: /index.php/search/
Disallow: /index.php/user/password/
Disallow: /index.php/user/register/
Disallow: /index.php/user/login/
Disallow: /index.php/user/logout/
#Custom URLs
Disallow: /disallow/
Disallow: /taxonomy/
Disallow: /ai/
Disallow: /form/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /media/
Disallow: /events/calendar/
Disallow: /protected-page/
Disallow: /search?*

sitemap.xml 200 OK

Type Sitemap Index URLs 15 entries Valid XML Yes

Child Sitemaps:

A+

Domain Intelligence

usccb.org — via Network Solutions, LLC, 30 years, 5 months old

PASS

usccb.org — via Network Solutions, LLC, 30 years, 5 months old

Domain registered until Apr 14, 2035 (9 years, 1 months remaining)

DNSSEC is not enabled

DNSSEC protects against DNS spoofing attacks. While not required, enabling DNSSEC adds an additional layer of security. Contact your DNS provider to enable it.

Registrar: Network Solutions, LLC

Registrar lock is NOT enabled

The domain can be transferred without an unlock step. Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) in your registrar's control panel to protect against unauthorized or accidental transfers.

Domain expiry

3224 days

April 14, 2035

SSL certificate

30 days

Issued by Let's Encrypt

Domain age

30 years, 5 months

Registered April 13, 1996

DNSSEC

Not enabled

Protects against DNS spoofing

Hosting

Unknown

2620:12a:8001::2

Registrar

Network Solutions, LLC

Unlocked 2 NS records

Expiry timeline

Today

+1 year

Domain expiry SSL expiry Danger zone (≤30 days)

Recommended actions

Renew the TLS certificate or verify auto-renewal is working
Enable DNSSEC to protect visitors from DNS spoofing
Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) to block unauthorized domain transfers

Registrar Network Solutions, LLC

Created April 13, 1996 (30 years, 5 months ago)

Expires April 14, 2035 (9 years, 1 months)

Last Updated April 20, 2025

Name Servers auth1.dns.cogentco.com, auth2.dns.cogentco.com

DNSSEC Not enabled

Hosting

IP Address 2620:12a:8001::2

Data source: rdap (0.2s)

DNSSEC protects against DNS spoofing attacks. While not required, enabling DNSSEC adds an additional layer of security. Contact your DNS provider to enable it.

Why this matters

Without DNSSEC, an attacker who can poison your DNS can hijack your domain — and SSL certs alone don't stop them.

Learn more ▾

DNSSEC adds cryptographic signatures to DNS records, preventing forged responses from poisoning resolver caches. Without it, an attacker who controls the network path can redirect your domain to a malicious server before any HTTPS handshake happens. Most modern registrars (Cloudflare, Google Domains, Route 53) enable it with one toggle.

Source: ICANN / RFC 4033

The domain can be transferred without an unlock step. Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) in your registrar's control panel to protect against unauthorized or accidental transfers.

Why this matters

Without registrar lock, an attacker who phishes your registrar credentials can transfer the domain in minutes — total brand hijack.

Learn more ▾

Registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited, clientDeleteProhibited) requires extra verification before any transfer/update/delete. Every major registrar offers it free. Combined with 2FA on your registrar account, it's the strongest defense against domain hijacking.

Source: ICANN / domain-security best practice

A+

HTTP Probe Timing

Total 30 ms — DNS, TCP, TLS, TTFB, content transfer breakdown

PASS

DNS Lookup

10 ms

TCP Connect

1 ms

TLS Handshake

5 ms

Time to First Byte

30 ms

Total Time

30 ms

Connection waterfall

DNS Lookup 10 ms TCP Connect 1 ms TLS Handshake 5 ms Server Processing 14 ms Content Transfer 0 ms

A+

CDN & Delivery

Fastly (HIT, HIT, MISS, MISS)

PASS

Fastly (HIT, HIT, MISS, MISS)

Site is served via Fastly CDN

Got: x-served-by: cache-chi-kigq8000090-CHI, cache-rtm-ehrd2290052-RTM, cache-rtm-ehrd2290031-RTM, cache-rtm-ehrd2290031-RTM

CDN cache status: HIT, HIT, MISS, MISS

CDN Detected: Fastly

Provider Fastly Cache Status HIT, HIT, MISS, MISS Evidence x-served-by: cache-chi-kigq8000090-CHI, cache-rtm-ehrd2290052-RTM, cache-rtm-ehrd2290031-RTM, cache-rtm-ehrd2290031-RTM