Verdict
kaist.ac.kr 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 KAIST website providing university information including admissions, research, news, campus services, and contact details. |
|---|
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% confidenceAbuseIPDB, 1 report; shared hosting inflates reports | Clear |
| Domain age | 29 years oldRegistered history | Clear |
| Web archive | Never archivedNo public history of this site | Watch |
| Certificate | Encrypted connectionIssued by GlobalSign GCC R46 OV TLS CA 2025 | Noted |
The page as captured
No screenshot is retained for this report.
Key findings
- Automated classification: Not Scam.
- Domain age: more than 10 years (registration continuity).
- VirusTotal and Google Safe Browsing had no flags for this domain; its hosting IP carries AbuseIPDB reports below the confidence level TrustSniffer treats as a flag.
Full analysis
Overview
KAIST is an institutional website for the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, presenting university information on admissions, education, research, news, campus life, student services, and contact details. Its apparent purpose is informational and educational rather than commercial: the site does not solicit payments or investments from visitors.
Scam/Impersonation Risk
No contradictions were observed across the available evidence: there is no confirmed phishing, impersonation, malicious-site, or blacklist finding, and the site's content is consistent with a university institution rather than a deceptive commercial operation. Behavioral testing did detect hidden forms, but no password-external forms, wallet activity, suspicious scripts, cloaking, or clipboard manipulation were identified; this is therefore a limited interaction artifact, not evidence of impersonation. The site's presentation of KAIST and its linked social presence are consistent with an established institutional identity, although the real-world operator is not independently proven by the available evidence.
- The homepage presents KAIST's admissions, research, university-news, campus-life, and student-service sections without investment or payment solicitation.
- Behavioral testing recorded hidden forms, but 0 password-external forms, 0 wallet-connect runs, 0 wallet-sensitive runs, 0 wallet-drainer runs, and 0 clipboard-write detections.
- The site links to Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and no brand-impersonation indicators were detected.
Regulatory Verification Notes
The available pages identify the institution as KAIST and provide institutional, academic, and contact-oriented content. No financial licensing claim is relevant to the stated business model, and the available evidence does not independently verify the real-world operator behind the site; the on-site institutional identity should therefore be treated as apparently legitimate rather than proven. One abuse report is associated with the hosting IP attributed to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, with zero confidence and university/college/school usage classification; it is a soft infrastructure-reputation signal and does not contradict the site's institutional purpose. A broker-reputation dataset recorded no match.
- The domain was registered on 1997-09-12 and is approximately 28.94 years old.
- Hosted on AS1781, KAIST-DAEJEON-AS-KR-KR — Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, KR.
- TLS certificate issued by GlobalSign GCC R46 OV TLS CA 2025, with OV validation, subject organization Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, valid to 2027-02-11.
- The hosting IP 143.248.155.65 has 1 reported abuse event, attributed to Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology with confidence score 0 and usage type University/College/School.
What to Verify Next
Before credential or payment interactions initiated through any linked service, an institutional user should independently compare the displayed identity and contact routes with official KAIST communications obtained through an offline or separately trusted channel. Any admissions, donation, merchandise, or account-related transaction should also be checked for the expected institutional destination, return or cancellation terms where applicable, and payment-provider protections. Ordinary informational browsing requires no additional transaction-specific validation.
- The site's contact and campus-information sections provide institutional contact details suitable for independent comparison.
- The admissions, education, and student-service sections are presented as university information rather than direct financial solicitation.
- The homepage contains no login form or sensitive submission form.
Summary Verdict
The overall posture is high trust and low risk, and the available evidence is consistent with an established, apparently legitimate university website. The classification is strong, while the connection between the website presentation and an independently verified real-world operator remains qualified rather than proven.
Infrastructure Integrity
The supplied infrastructure facts do not identify a trusted CDN or WAF, so protective edge infrastructure is not relied upon as proof of legitimacy or as a significant mitigation. No separate conclusion about origin exposure is drawn from the available infrastructure record.
Closing Assessment
Routine informational use is appropriate; before submitting credentials or making a payment through any linked service, ordinary independent identity, transaction-term, and payment-protection checks should be completed.
Written analysis generated 2026-08-13 by the TrustSniffer Analysis Engine from the evidence in this report.
What the analysis found
No rule findings contributed to this verdict.
Signals weighed against the site
- AbuseIPDB: 1 report on hosting IP 143.248.155.65 (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, University/College/School), 0% confidence.
Identity verification
| Status | LIKELY |
|---|---|
| Identity score | 79/100 |
| Identity verification confidence | 78% |
- Identity verified on page
- Trusted social count=3
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 kaist.ac.kr.
- The request stayed on kaist.ac.kr. It was not redirected to another domain. Clear
- Registration is published under Inames Co., Ltd.(http://www.inames.co.kr). Clear
- DNS for this domain is served by ac.kr, across 2 name servers. Noted
- The registration is paid up to 2027-02-28. Noted
- It is hosted on KAIST-DAEJEON-AS-KR-KR, from a server in KR. Noted
Domain intelligence
| Registrar | Inames Co., Ltd.(http://www.inames.co.kr) |
|---|---|
| Hosting | KAIST-DAEJEON-AS-KR-KR - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, KR |
| Country | KR |
| Server IP | 143.248.155.65 |
| Name servers | ns.kaist.ac.kr, ns1.kaist.ac.kr |
| SSL issuer | GlobalSign GCC R46 OV TLS CA 2025 |
| SSL expiry | 2027-02-11 |
| Domain age | 28.94 years (continuous registration) |
| Domain expiry | 2027-02-28 |
| Archive first seen | Not available |
| Archive snapshots | 0 |
| Reputation | VirusTotal: 0 flagged | AbuseIPDB: 0% confidence, 1 report | Google Safe Browsing: 0 matches |
About this assessment
A trust score summarises the evidence TrustSniffer could collect about kaist.ac.kr 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.