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Security report for pixabay.de

Pixabay · Media · N/a

Low risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, Email security and 1 other check.

Security score

79/100

Risk levelLow

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

Pixabay is a well-established online platform founded in 2010 that offers over one million free, high-quality images for download, catering to a broad audience including creatives and businesses seeking royalty-free media. The platform operates a freemium business model, providing free content with optional premium services, positioning itself as a leading resource in the free stock image market. The website is professionally designed with excellent content relevance and user experience, optimized for mobile devices and SEO. Technically, Pixabay employs modern web technologies including React, Cloudflare CDN, Google reCAPTCHA, and Snowplow Analytics, ensuring fast performance and robust infrastructure. Security measures include HTTPS enforcement, multiple security headers, and GDPR-compliant consent management, although DNSSEC is not enabled, representing a minor security enhancement opportunity. No critical vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected. The site lacks explicit public security policies or incident response contacts, and no vulnerability disclosure mechanism is present. Overall, Pixabay demonstrates a mature digital presence with strong privacy compliance and a trustworthy reputation in the media industry.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
88/ 100 · Low
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

4 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. 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.

  3. SSL/TLS

    TLS encrypts the connection and proves the site is really yours. Weak or expiring certificates trigger browser warnings and put traffic at risk.

    • High

      Weak SSL Key Length

      SSL certificate uses 256-bit key, which is considered weak

      What to do: Use at least 2048-bit RSA or 256-bit ECC key

      • CWE-326
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • Mozilla TLS: Mozilla Server Side TLS 6.0 intermediate: rsa_key_size 2048

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

Keep watching pixabay.de

This scan found 16 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.

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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
75
Security headers
55
Email security
75
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
88
Average
79

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

Pixabay holds a strong market position as a major provider of free stock images, leveraging a large user base and extensive content library. Its competitive advantage lies in offering high-quality images free for commercial use without attribution, appealing to a wide range of users from individuals to enterprises. The business model likely generates revenue through premium offerings or partnerships, although explicit monetization details are not visible. The company maintains active social media channels to engage its community and enhance brand visibility. The absence of direct contact emails or phone numbers on the main site suggests a focus on streamlined digital communication via contact forms. The platform's partnership ecosystem includes integrations with major analytics and consent management providers, supporting compliance and marketing efforts. Growth indicators include continuous content expansion and technological modernization. Strategic observations highlight the importance of enhancing security transparency and establishing formal vulnerability disclosure processes to further strengthen trust.

Security posture

Pixabay exhibits a strong security posture with HTTPS enforced site-wide, use of Cloudflare for CDN and DDoS protection, and implementation of security headers such as HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and Content-Security-Policy. The integration of Google reCAPTCHA mitigates automated abuse risks. GDPR compliance is evident through a comprehensive privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism managed by OneTrust. However, the lack of DNSSEC implementation is a minor gap that could be addressed to improve DNS security. No public security policy or incident response contact information was found, which could hinder rapid communication in case of security incidents. The absence of a security.txt file or vulnerability disclosure page limits transparency for security researchers. No vulnerable libraries or exposed sensitive data were detected in the analysis. Overall, the security maturity is high but could benefit from enhanced disclosure and incident response readiness.

Recommendations

  1. Enable DNSSEC on the domain to strengthen DNS security and prevent spoofing.
  2. Publish a security.txt file to facilitate responsible vulnerability disclosure.
  3. Add explicit security policy and incident response contact information on the website.
  4. Regularly review and audit third-party scripts and libraries for vulnerabilities.
  5. Enhance transparency on data retention policies and user data handling.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Pixabay
Description
Pixabay bietet eine umfangreiche Sammlung von über 1 Million kostenlosen Bildern zum Herunterladen, die für kommerzielle Zwecke genutzt werden können, ohne Namensnennung. Hochwertige Bilder stehen zur Verfügung.
Key services
Bereitstellung kostenloser Bilder, Suchfunktion für Bilder, Community-Features
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
JavaScript, Cloudflare CDN, Google reCAPTCHA, Snowplow Analytics, OneTrust Consent Management
Platforms
Web
Performance
fast
Mobile
excellent
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
90/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Use of Cloudflare for DDoS protection and CDN
  • reCAPTCHA for bot protection
  • Consent management for GDPR compliance

Analytics and tracking

Services
Snowplow Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Snowplow Analytics, Facebook SDK
Marketing tools
Google reCAPTCHA, OneTrust Consent Management
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 no blocking or WAF challenge.
  2. Strong GDPR compliance with cookie consent and privacy policy.
  3. Use of modern web technologies and analytics.
  4. No exposed sensitive data or security vulnerabilities detected.
  5. No direct company contact emails or phone numbers found on main page; contact via form.
  6. Social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram.
  7. No explicit security policy or incident response contact found publicly.
  8. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure page detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built using modern JavaScript frameworks, likely React, with chunked JavaScript files indicating a single-page application architecture. Hosting and CDN services are provided by Cloudflare, ensuring fast content delivery and protection against common web threats. The site uses Google reCAPTCHA for bot mitigation and OneTrust for GDPR-compliant consent management. Performance is optimized with preloading of fonts and scripts, and mobile optimization is excellent. SEO is supported by proper meta tags, Open Graph data, and structured JSON-LD schema for organization and website. Accessibility features are present but could be further enhanced. No common CMS was detected, suggesting a custom or proprietary content management solution. Overall, the technical infrastructure is robust, modern, and well-maintained, supporting a high-quality user experience and operational reliability.
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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