Verdict
appleinthecase.com shows high-risk / scam indicators.
This assessment found strong scam indicators. Do not pay, sign in, or share personal details with this site.
| What this site appears to be | Chinese-language municipal statistics bureau site containing news, announcements, policy files, statistical reports, and contact details (鞍山市统计局). |
|---|
Evidence status and limitations
Evidence completeness: UNKNOWN
- The real-world operator identity was not independently verified.
- Module-level completeness metadata is unavailable for this legacy report.
At a glance
The checks that decide most of this verdict.
| Malware engines | 13 flagged itVirusTotal | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Google Safe Browsing | Not listedGoogle | Clear |
| Abuse reports on the host | 0 reportsAbuseIPDB; shared hosting inflates this count | Noted |
| Domain age | 8.2 years oldRegistered history | Clear |
| Web archive | Archived since 2013Public history exists | Clear |
| Certificate | Encrypted connectionIssued by YR1 | Noted |
The page as captured
Key findings
- Automated classification: Sensitive Interaction Risk.
- Domain age: 3 to 10 years (registration continuity).
- Public web-archive history exists since 2013.
- At least one reputation service TrustSniffer consulted had flagged this domain at assessment time.
Full analysis
Security Alert
Kaspersky, Sophos flagged this site in external intelligence checks, indicating elevated compromise/scam exposure that requires immediate caution.
This Chinese-language website presents itself as the Anshan Municipal Statistics Bureau, publishing municipal statistical information, government notices, policy documents, statistical reports, and public-service contact details through an apparently non-commercial government information portal.
Scam/Impersonation Risk
The site’s apparent public-sector content does not align with its external security reputation. Confirmed blacklist status and multiple malicious detections constitute a serious contradiction, including 13 malicious and one suspicious classification in external scanning; the available evidence does not establish that the site operator is the claimed municipal authority. No conflicting legal-entity names, direct brand-impersonation indicators, or phishing forms were identified in the supplied page analysis, but those benign page characteristics do not offset the external threat findings. The appropriate posture is therefore to treat sensitive interaction as unsafe pending independent confirmation.
- The homepage contains Chinese-language government-style navigation for public notices, policy files, statistical information, and departmental announcements, but the domain is subject to a confirmed external blacklist.
- External scanning recorded 13 malicious detections and 1 suspicious detection, with threat detections attributed to multiple security providers.
- The captured homepage contained no login form, hidden form, password submission, wallet connection, or suspicious inline script.
Regulatory Verification Notes
The website’s content is consistent with a municipal public-service information portal, but the available evidence does not independently verify the real-world operator behind the domain. No commercial licensing claim or license number is presented, and the supplied content does not provide a separately corroborated legal-entity disclosure. That is a verification gap rather than, by itself, proof of fraud; however, combined with the confirmed blacklist status, it materially weakens confidence in relying on the site for official information or sensitive transactions. No broker match was identified in the available third-party reputational context, which is only a limited contextual signal and is not a regulatory determination.
- Domain registration: 2018-06-20T11:26:04Z; age 8.17 years; registrar NameSilo, LLC.
- Historical coverage records 149 archive snapshots spanning 2013–2026, with 14 years tracked.
- The site is hosted on AS398823, PEG-LA - PEG TECH INC, US.
- Transport encryption uses a DV certificate issued by YR1, valid to 2026-11-18T09:30:49+00:00.
What to Verify Next
Before any sensitive use, an institution should confirm the official domain through an independently sourced municipal-government directory or an offline contact route, rather than relying on links or contact details presented by the site. The claimed bureau identity and the authenticity of any documents should be corroborated through a separately authenticated government channel. If the site is intended only for public information, content should be cross-checked against another authoritative source before it is used for compliance, payments, or operational decisions.
- The homepage identifies a municipal statistics function but does not independently establish the domain’s affiliation with that authority.
- The captured page contains public notices and policy documents whose provenance should be confirmed through an independently sourced official channel.
- The external reputation conflict requires corroboration before credentials, confidential information, or financial activity is considered.
Summary Verdict
The overall posture is critical trust risk. Although the page content appears routine and non-commercial, the confirmed external threat detections and unresolved operator identity make the site unsuitable for sensitive interaction or reliance as an authenticated institutional source.
Infrastructure Integrity
The domain resolves to a single directly exposed origin, with no detected CDN or WAF layer and no edge-IP protection identified. This provides limited infrastructure-based mitigation and should not be treated as evidence of legitimacy.
Closing Assessment
Restrict use to passive viewing only until the claimed institutional affiliation and the integrity of the domain are independently confirmed; credentials, confidential information, and financial activity should not be submitted.
Written analysis generated 2026-08-21 by the TrustSniffer Analysis Engine from the evidence in this report.
What the analysis found
2 findings contributed to this verdict, raised by registration and ownership, analysis engine, external reputation.
01 Governance Risk
- Registration details are held behind a privacy service, so no operator is named publicly. This is common and legal, and it also means there is nobody to check.Registration and ownership
rule:KF_WHOIS_PRIVATE - The registration record withholds contact details for the operator.Registration and ownership
rule:KF_WHOIS_HIDDEN
02 Sensitive Interaction Risk
- The analysis matched a pattern TrustSniffer treats as a direct threat to a visitor.Analysis engine
signal:direct_threat - An external threat feed lists this domain: either Google Safe Browsing marked it malicious, or a significant number of malware engines flagged it.External reputation
rule:EXT_BLACKLIST_CRITICAL
Identity verification
| Status | UNVERIFIED |
|---|---|
| Identity score | 30/100 |
| Identity verification confidence | 25% |
- No on-site identity signals detected
Identity verification measures whether the site can be independently connected to a real-world brand or person. It is separate from the classification confidence.
What TrustSniffer observed
First-party facts recorded during the assessment of appleinthecase.com.
- The request stayed on appleinthecase.com. It was not redirected to another domain. Clear
- Registration is published under NameSilo, LLC. Clear
- DNS for this domain is served by dnsowl.com, across 3 name servers. Noted
- The registration is paid up to 2027-06-20. Noted
- The earliest public archive of this site is from 2013-11-18. Clear
- It is hosted on PEG-LA, from a server in US. Noted
Domain intelligence
| Registrar | NameSilo, LLC |
|---|---|
| Hosting | PEG-LA - PEG TECH INC, US |
| Country | US |
| Server IP | 38.38.37.82 |
| Name servers | NS1.DNSOWL.COM, NS2.DNSOWL.COM, NS3.DNSOWL.COM |
| SSL issuer | YR1 |
| SSL expiry | 2026-11-18 |
| Domain age | 8.17 years (continuous registration) |
| Domain expiry | 2027-06-20 |
| Archive first seen | 2013-11-18 |
| Archive snapshots | Not counted (archive lookup incomplete) |
| Reputation | VirusTotal: 13 flagged | AbuseIPDB: 0 reports | Google Safe Browsing: 0 matches |
About this assessment
A trust score summarises the evidence TrustSniffer could collect about appleinthecase.com at assessment time. It is a starting point for your own judgement, not a guarantee: a high score means the signals were consistent with a legitimately operated site, a low or critical score means several risk patterns were present.
TrustSniffer assesses a website from the evidence it can collect at a point in time: domain registration and age, hosting and certificate, the content the site served, and third-party reputation feeds. A score is a summary of that evidence, not a guarantee and not a legal finding. There is no human rating and no user review in it. A site can change after it is assessed.