Dive Brief:

• The General Services Administration announced it will now automatically enforce HTTPS in new executive branch .gov domains and their subdomains, according to the CIO Council. 

• The White House first began compelling new federal web services to enforce HTTPS connections in 2015, but now HTTPS security provisions will occur automatically whenever a new .gov domain site is registered.

• The federal government is now adopting HTTPS faster than the private sector, according to government website 18F.

Dive Insight:

While it’s a step in the right direction toward security, the change will not affect existing or renewed domains. So there is still a ways to go to before all federal websites are using HTTPS and helping ensure strong website security.

The secure web connections enabled by HTTPS can foil attempts to intercept information and help maintain the integrity of information sent and received between parties.

Growing threats to internet security caused more large hosting providers and U.S. government sites to implement HTTPS for sites they host in 2016, providing users of those sites extra security without requiring any effort on their part, according to a report released earlier this month from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).