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Security report for pressbooks.com

Pressbooks · Education · N/a

Medium risk. 4 critical or high findings in Security headers, GDPR outside view and 1 other check.

Security score

73/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Pressbooks is a well-established digital publishing platform founded in 2004, specializing in empowering authors, educators, and organizations to create and share digital books and open educational resources (OER). The website positions itself as a leading platform in the education sector, offering tools for digital book creation and publishing. The technical infrastructure is based on WordPress CMS with a modern theme and integrations with marketing and analytics tools such as HubSpot and Google Analytics. Hosting appears to be on Amazon AWS, ensuring reliable performance and scalability. Security posture is adequate with HTTPS enabled and domain registration protections, but lacks advanced security headers and published security policies. Privacy compliance is weak due to absence of explicit privacy and cookie policies. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and content-rich, targeting educational users globally.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 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

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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

  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

  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 Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

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

Keep watching pressbooks.com

This scan found 21 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
82
Security headers
50
Email security
55
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
73

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 pressbooks.com, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
1,604
Employees
0
Customers
1,604
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
9%

291 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 pressbooks.com.

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

Pressbooks operates in the education technology sector, focusing on digital publishing and open educational resources. Its business model revolves around providing a platform for content creation and distribution, targeting authors, educators, and institutions. The company benefits from a strong market position as a leading OER platform, supported by a medium-sized organizational scale and a long operational history since 2004. The website integrates marketing and analytics tools to support growth and user engagement. The presence of LinkedIn social media indicates active professional networking. However, the lack of visible contact information and formal policies may limit trust for some users. There is no evidence of parent or subsidiary companies, suggesting an independent operation.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a baseline security posture with HTTPS enforced and domain status flags preventing unauthorized transfers or updates. However, the absence of DNSSEC and security headers such as Content-Security-Policy or X-Frame-Options reduces defense-in-depth. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policies are published, which could hinder coordinated vulnerability reporting. The use of third-party marketing and analytics scripts introduces potential privacy and security risks if not properly managed. No exposed sensitive data or known vulnerabilities were detected in the provided content. Overall, the security maturity is moderate but could be improved with enhanced policies and technical controls.

Recommendations

  1. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies to improve GDPR compliance and user trust.
  2. Implement DNSSEC to enhance domain security against DNS spoofing.
  3. Add security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security.
  4. Create and publish a security.txt file and vulnerability disclosure policy to facilitate responsible security reporting.
  5. Provide clear and accessible contact information including support and security contacts to improve transparency.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Pressbooks
Description
Pressbooks empowers authors, educators and organizations to create, publish and share digital books and open educational resources (OER)
Key services
Digital book creation, Publishing, Sharing open educational resources
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 6.8.2, Kadence theme, jQuery, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, HubSpot scripts
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Web
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enabled
  • Client transfer and update prohibited domain status

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, HubSpot Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
poor

Advertising

Tracking pixels
HubSpot, LinkedIn Insight, Facebook Pixel
Marketing tools
HubSpot
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is professionally designed and well-structured.
  2. No privacy or cookie policies explicitly found on main page.
  3. No contact emails or phone numbers explicitly found in visible content.
  4. Use of multiple marketing and analytics tools including HubSpot and Google Analytics.
  5. Domain is well aged and registered with reputable registrar.
  6. No security.txt or vulnerability disclosure policy found.
  7. No explicit security headers detected in provided data.
  8. No WAF or blocking mechanisms detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on WordPress 6.8.2 using the Kadence theme, leveraging jQuery and multiple HubSpot marketing scripts. It uses Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics for tracking and analytics. Hosting is likely on Amazon AWS, inferred from DNS servers. The site is mobile optimized and accessible with good SEO practices including meta tags and structured data (JSON-LD). Performance is moderate, with some optimization opportunities. No critical technical debt or outdated libraries were detected. The site lacks DNSSEC and some security headers, which are recommended for modern web security. Overall, the technical implementation is solid but can benefit from enhanced security configurations and formalized privacy compliance.
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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