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Security report for openlibhums.org

Open Library of Humanities · Education · United Kingdom

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 2 other checks.

Security score

59/100

Risk levelMedium

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

The Open Library of Humanities is a reputable, award-winning non-profit academic publisher focused on providing open-access humanities scholarship. Affiliated with Birkbeck, University of London, it operates a sustainable diamond open-access business model funded by academic and public libraries worldwide. The website reflects a mature digital presence with excellent content quality, clear navigation, and strong branding consistency. Technically, it employs modern web technologies including Django, JavaScript libraries, and an open-source publishing platform, ensuring good performance and mobile optimization. Security posture is strong with HTTPS and secure forms, though explicit security headers and policies could be improved. Privacy compliance is good with a clear privacy policy, but lacks a cookie consent mechanism. Overall, the site is trustworthy and professionally maintained, with no signs of malicious activity or suspicious domains.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 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

6 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 Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • 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. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • High

      No DMARC record found

      DMARC provides email authentication and reporting

      What to do: Add DMARC record: "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com"

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

Keep watching openlibhums.org

This scan found 20 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.

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  • 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
62
Security headers
50
Email security
65
DNS health
85
Network security
40
GDPR outside view
53
Average
59

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

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention openlibhums.org, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
90
Employees
0
Customers
90
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
7%

7 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for openlibhums.org.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The OLH holds a strong market position in the academic publishing sector, particularly in humanities open access. Its business model avoids author fees, relying on library consortia funding, which differentiates it from many commercial publishers. The organization targets academics, researchers, librarians, and authors, emphasizing community ownership and academic-led scholarship. Partnerships with Birkbeck University and use of open-source software enhance credibility and operational efficiency. Growth indicators include multiple featured journals and active community engagement. The absence of direct contact emails suggests a preference for controlled communication channels via forms and social media.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a mature security posture with enforced HTTPS, secure form handling, and no visible sensitive data exposure. However, the absence of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and lack of a published security policy or incident response contacts represent areas for improvement. No vulnerable or outdated libraries were detected. Privacy compliance is generally good, but the lack of a cookie consent mechanism may pose GDPR compliance risks. Incident response readiness and vulnerability disclosure mechanisms are not evident, which could impact trust in security incident handling.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and document comprehensive security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Referrer-Policy.
  2. Add a dedicated security policy page and provide clear incident response contact information.
  3. Introduce a cookie consent mechanism to enhance GDPR compliance and user transparency.
  4. Publish a vulnerability disclosure policy and security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and dependencies to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Open Library of Humanities
Description
The Open Library of Humanities is an award-winning open-access publisher of internationally leading academic scholarship. Their mission is to support and extend open access to scholarship in the humanities – for free, for everyone, for ever. They aim to liberate university research from commercial control and believe scholarship should be academic-led and community-owned.
Key services
Publishing open-access humanities journals, Developing open-source publishing software, Researching scholarly communication, Engaging academic and library communities
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Glide.js, MiniSearch, TinyMCE, Django (implied by django_tinymce script), Janeway publishing platform
Frameworks
Django
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Secure forms with POST method
  • No vulnerable libraries detected

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Marketing tools
Mailchimp (email newsletter)
Transparency
good

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with rich content and navigation
  2. Strong academic and open-access publishing focus
  3. No signs of malicious or suspicious activity
  4. No direct contact emails or phone numbers publicly listed, contact via form
  5. No explicit cookie consent banner despite cookie policy presence
  6. Use of modern JavaScript libraries and open-source publishing platform
  7. Affiliation with reputable academic institution (Birkbeck, University of London)
  8. Use of Creative Commons licensing for content
  9. No visible security policy or incident response information
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a solid technical foundation using Django and modern JavaScript libraries such as Glide.js and MiniSearch, ensuring good interactivity and search functionality. The use of the Janeway open-source publishing platform aligns with the organization's open-access mission. Performance is fast with responsive design optimized for mobile devices. Accessibility features are present but could be further enhanced. SEO is well addressed with proper meta tags and Open Graph data. No technical debt or legacy technology issues were detected, indicating good maintenance and modernization 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

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