The White House-imposed deadline for federal agencies to transition their websites to the HTTPS communications protocol passed on New Year’s Eve, but some agencies’ conversions remain a work in progress.
The HTTPS protocol, although it has limitations, provides a more secure connection by establishing an encrypted connection that protects most information exchanged between a website and its user.
In June 2015, the Office of Management and Budget memorandum mandated a government-wide migration from the unencrypted HTTP to HTTPS for “all publicly accessible federal websites and web services,” including APIs, by Dec. 31, 2016.
