Verdict
dur.ac.uk appears legitimate.
Our checks found nothing pointing to fraud. Ordinary care still applies when you pay or sign in.
| What this site appears to be | Official Durham University website pages covering study options, research, news, events, and contact information. Appears to be an institutional, informational site with typical university content. |
|---|
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 | None flagged itVirusTotal | Clear |
|---|---|---|
| Google Safe Browsing | Not listedGoogle | Clear |
| Abuse reports on the host | 0 reportsAbuseIPDB; shared hosting inflates this count | Noted |
| Domain age | 29 years oldRegistered history | Clear |
| Web archive | Archived since 19975000 snapshots | Clear |
| Certificate | Encrypted connectionIssued by Amazon RSA 2048 M01 | Noted |
The page as captured
Key findings
- Automated classification: Not Scam.
- Domain age: more than 10 years (registration continuity).
- Public web-archive history exists since 1997.
- No flags from the reputation services TrustSniffer consulted at assessment time.
Full analysis
Overview
The website is the public-facing Durham University site, presenting information about undergraduate and postgraduate study, research, university news, events, student support, admissions, and contact services. Its apparent purpose is to provide institutional information and support education-related engagement rather than to operate a high-risk commercial or financial service.
Scam/Impersonation Risk
No contradictions were observed. The site’s content, navigation, and functionality are consistent with an established university website: it provides study, research, admissions, events, student-support, and contact information, with no detected phishing, credential-harvesting, wallet, or impersonation indicators. Independent reputation checks were clean, and the site has a strong global traffic footprint. The available evidence is therefore consistent with an established, apparently legitimate website, although the real-world operator identity is not independently verified.
- The homepage presents Durham University branding and structured university sections for study, research, student support, events, admissions, and contact services.
- The site’s single observed form was a search/contact interface with no sensitive credential fields or untrusted submission destination.
- The domain was registered in 1997 and has an authoritative age of 29.190965092402465 years.
- Web-archive records contain 5000 snapshots spanning 1997-06-07T22:06:51Z to 2024-01-05T02:29:59Z, covering 28 years.
Regulatory Verification Notes
The website’s apparent institutional purpose does not present it as a third-party regulated financial service. The available content identifies Durham University in an institutional context, but no licensing or registration number for a regulated service is disclosed in the reviewed material; this is a transparency item for confirmation rather than evidence of deception. No matching third-party broker-reputation record was identified, and the clean reputation signals support the site’s established presentation without independently proving the operator’s legal identity.
- The homepage title and institutional navigation identify the organisation as Durham University and provide education-focused services.
- The hosting infrastructure is attributed to AS16509, Amazon.com, Inc., US.
- The site’s TLS certificate is issued by Amazon RSA 2048 M01, uses DV validation, and is valid to 2026-12-30T23:59:59+00:00.
What to Verify Next
Before credential or payment interactions, an organisation should independently confirm the institution’s legal identity through an authoritative university or public-sector source, use contact details obtained through an independent route, and review the applicable admissions, payment, refund, and data-protection terms. Any payment should be made only through an institutionally confirmed channel with appropriate payment protection.
- The site provides admissions, course, student-support, and contact pathways that can be cross-checked against independently sourced institutional records.
- The site links to established social platforms, providing additional channels for confirming official communications.
- The reviewed page contains no sensitive form, wallet connection, or external password-submission mechanism.
Summary Verdict
The overall posture is high trust and low risk, with strong convergence between the site’s institutional content, long-running presence, clean reputation, and sound technical operation. Legitimacy is apparent and evidence-consistent, but the operator’s real-world identity remains likely rather than independently verified.
Infrastructure Integrity
The site is protected by a CDN/WAF architecture, with observed edge addresses 75.2.69.134 and 99.83.253.255 served through AS16509; the origin server was not observable in this analysis. This reduces direct exposure of the underlying service and is a mitigating security characteristic, not proof of legitimacy.
Closing Assessment
Normal browsing and ordinary institutional use are proportionate to the assessed posture; independent identity, payment-protection, and service-term checks should be completed before submitting credentials or making payments.
Written analysis generated 2026-08-17 by the TrustSniffer Analysis Engine from the evidence in this report.
What the analysis found
No rule findings contributed to this verdict.
Identity verification
| Status | LIKELY |
|---|---|
| Identity score | 80/100 |
| Identity verification confidence | 80% |
- Identity verified on page
- Trusted social count=5
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 dur.ac.uk.
- The request stayed on dur.ac.uk. It was not redirected to another domain. Clear
- The earliest public archive of this site is from 1997-06-07. Clear
- It is hosted on AMAZON-02, from a server in US. Noted
Domain intelligence
| Registrar | Not available |
|---|---|
| Hosting | AMAZON-02 - Amazon.com, Inc., US |
| Country | US |
| Server IP | 75.2.69.134 |
| Name servers | Not available |
| SSL issuer | Amazon RSA 2048 M01 |
| SSL expiry | 2026-12-30 |
| Domain age | 29.19 years (continuous registration) |
| Domain expiry | Not available |
| Archive first seen | 1997-06-07 |
| Archive snapshots | 5000 |
| Reputation | VirusTotal: 0 flagged | AbuseIPDB: 0 reports | Google Safe Browsing: 0 matches |
About this assessment
A trust score summarises the evidence TrustSniffer could collect about dur.ac.uk 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.