Skip to main content

Security report for pencidesign.net

PenNews · Media · N/a

Medium risk. 6 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

71/100

Risk levelMedium

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

PenNews is a WordPress theme provider specializing in news, magazine, portfolio, and business themes. The website serves as a demo and sales platform showcasing multiple theme styles and customization options. The technical infrastructure is based on WordPress with popular plugins such as WooCommerce, BuddyPress, and bbPress, indicating a mature digital setup suitable for content-heavy sites. The site uses HTTPS and modern web technologies but lacks some security headers and privacy compliance features. The absence of WHOIS data raises some concerns about domain legitimacy, although the site content and structure appear professional and functional. Overall, the site is moderately secure and technically sound but would benefit from enhanced privacy and security practices.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of pencidesign.net. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
58/ 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. 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.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  2. 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';…

  3. 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

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

Keep watching pencidesign.net

This scan found 19 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.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. See sample alerts.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

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
75
Security headers
55
Email security
60
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
58
Average
71

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

Technical appendix

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

Business context

Business profile

PenNews targets website developers, bloggers, and businesses seeking versatile WordPress themes for news and magazine style websites. Its competitive advantage lies in offering a large variety of header styles, post templates, and content blocks with drag & drop customization. The business model revolves around theme sales and demos, with a focus on user-friendly design and SEO optimization. The presence of social media icons and structured data suggests an intent to build brand presence and improve search visibility. However, the lack of explicit contact details and privacy policies may limit trust for some users. The company appears to be a small niche player in the WordPress theme market with a focus on media-related themes.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and uses secure login and registration forms, which are positive security indicators. However, the absence of key security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, HSTS, and X-Frame-Options reduces the overall security posture. No evidence of vulnerable libraries or exposed sensitive data was found in the HTML content. The site lacks visible incident response or security policy information, which could be improved to enhance trust and readiness. The missing WHOIS data also impacts domain trustworthiness. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but could be significantly improved with better header implementation and transparency.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear user consent mechanisms to improve compliance.
  2. Add security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and HSTS to strengthen site security.
  3. Publish incident response and security policy information to increase transparency and user trust.
  4. Verify and publish WHOIS domain registration details or use a registrar that provides public WHOIS data to improve legitimacy perception.
  5. Regularly update all plugins and themes and consider multi-factor authentication for user accounts to enhance security.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
PenNews
Description
The Best News & Magazine WordPress Themes. Offers a large WordPress theme for news, magazine, portfolio, business, and landing pages with multiple demos and drag & drop editing.
Key services
WordPress theme demos, Theme customization via drag & drop, Support for WooCommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 5.7.8, WooCommerce 5.1.0, BuddyPress 7.2.0, bbPress 2.6.9, WPBakery Page Builder 5.4.5, jQuery 3.5.1, Snazzy Maps
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
PHP-based CMS
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
65/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure login and registration forms

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Marketing tools
Yoast SEO
Transparency
basic

Site quality

Design
good
User experience
good
Content relevance
good
Navigation
good
Professionalism
good
Trustworthiness
moderate

Key observations

  1. Website is a WordPress-based theme demo site for PenNews theme
  2. No WHOIS data available, domain WHOIS query returned no match
  3. No explicit privacy, cookie, or terms of service pages detected in provided content
  4. Login and registration forms present, collecting user credentials
  5. Social media links present but URLs are placeholders (#)
  6. No company contact emails or phone numbers found
  7. SEO and structured data implemented via Yoast SEO plugin
  8. No security headers detected in HTML content
  9. HTTPS is enabled
  10. No signs of adult or NSFW content
Technical notes

Notes

The site is built on WordPress 5.7.8 with WooCommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPBakery Page Builder, indicating a robust and extensible CMS platform. It uses modern web fonts, jQuery 3.5.1, and integrates Snazzy Maps for map styling. SEO is enhanced via Yoast SEO plugin with structured data in JSON-LD format. The site is mobile responsive and has good navigation clarity. Performance is moderate, with no explicit performance optimization scripts detected. Accessibility is basic but could be improved. The lack of security headers and privacy compliance features are technical gaps. Hosting provider details are not discernible from the content. Overall, the technical stack is standard for WordPress theme demo sites but could benefit from modernization in security and privacy implementations.
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

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 75/100Medium12 findings · partial scanView report
Reviews of this site

Share your experience with pencidesign.net. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review pencidesign.net.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.