Skip to main content

Security report for pressbooks.pub

Pressbooks · Education · N/a

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

Security score

72/100

Risk levelMedium

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

Pressbooks is a digital publishing platform focused on enabling authors, educators, and creators to produce and distribute digital books and open educational resources. The platform offers user-friendly tools for creating accessible, multimedia-rich content and supports remixing of openly licensed textbooks. The website is built on WordPress and integrates modern analytics and monitoring tools, reflecting a mature technical infrastructure. Security posture is solid with HTTPS and monitoring in place, though improvements in security headers and cookie consent mechanisms are recommended. The domain WHOIS data is privacy protected, which is typical for SaaS platforms, and no suspicious indicators were found. Overall, the site presents a professional and trustworthy digital publishing service.

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. 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 X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

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

    • 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 pressbooks.pub

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. The full timeline opens with your unlock code.

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
82
Security headers
55
Email security
60
DNS health
80
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
72

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

Pressbooks occupies a niche in the education technology sector, providing SaaS tools for digital book creation and open textbook adaptation. Its business model leverages open educational resources and self-publishing, targeting authors, educators, and institutions. The platform's partnerships with pressbooks.com and pressbooks.directory enhance its ecosystem. The company demonstrates a consistent brand and offers premium support services, indicating a medium-sized operation with a focus on quality and user support. The presence on LinkedIn and YouTube supports community engagement and marketing efforts.

Security posture

The website enforces HTTPS and uses security monitoring tools like WP Sentry, indicating a proactive approach to security. However, the absence of visible security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and lack of a cookie consent mechanism suggest areas for improvement in compliance and defense-in-depth. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the HTML content. The lack of a published incident response or security policy page limits transparency. Overall, the security posture is good but could be enhanced with additional headers and privacy controls.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive security headers (CSP, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy) to improve defense-in-depth.
  2. Add a cookie consent banner and explicit cookie policy to enhance privacy compliance and user transparency.
  3. Publish a dedicated security policy and incident response page to improve trust and preparedness.
  4. Consider adding a vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file to facilitate responsible reporting.
  5. Enhance contact information availability, including verified company emails and phone numbers, to improve business credibility.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Pressbooks
Description
Pressbooks provides user-friendly digital publishing tools for authors and creators to create digital books, remix and revise open educational resources (OER), and publish accessible multimedia content.
Key services
Digital book creation, Open textbook remixing and adaptation, Accessible multimedia publishing, Premium support
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
WordPress 6.8, jQuery 3.7.1, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Koko Analytics, WP Sentry (error monitoring)
Frameworks
WordPress
Platforms
Pressbooks platform
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of security monitoring (WP Sentry)

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics, Koko Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Koko Analytics
Transparency
basic

Site quality

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

Key observations

  1. Website is fully accessible with no blocking or WAF challenges.
  2. Content is professionally presented and relevant to digital publishing and education.
  3. WHOIS data is privacy protected, limiting registrant visibility.
  4. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on the main site.
  5. Privacy policy is hosted externally on Google Docs but is comprehensive and linked in footer.
  6. No cookie consent banner or explicit cookie policy detected.
  7. Security headers are not explicitly visible in the HTML source.
  8. Use of modern analytics and error monitoring tools.
  9. Social media presence on LinkedIn and YouTube.
  10. No evidence of adult or questionable content.
Technical notes

Notes

The site is built on WordPress 6.8 with jQuery and integrates Google Tag Manager and Analytics for tracking. It uses Koko Analytics for additional data collection and WP Sentry for error monitoring, indicating a modern and well-monitored infrastructure. The site loads external fonts from Google Fonts and uses SVG icons for branding and social media links. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and accessibility features. The site lacks some advanced SEO meta tags but includes canonical and oEmbed links. No major technical debt or outdated libraries were detected.
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

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with pressbooks.pub. 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 pressbooks.pub.

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.