Is elster-app.com legit or a scam?
Phishing clone of German tax authority ELSTER, designed to harvest bank credentials and IBAN data via fake verification pages.
These checks passed — but they don't clear the site. A clean antivirus result, valid SSL, and a calm server only mean it isn't hosting malware; they say nothing about whether the business is real. This verdict is based on the site's conduct and content, not a malware detection.
Analysis Summary
Brand impersonation — not the real site
18 of 92 antivirus engines flag this page as malicious. This page is styled as a brand but is not the brand's real site. Go to the official site directly, and treat any download, login, or payment request here as unsafe.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site. See full visual analysis →
Visual Screenshot Analysis
We capture a fresh screenshot of the live page and ask a vision model to look for scam visual patterns — fake trust badges, countdown timers, overlay pop-ups, and visual clones of legitimate brands.
Visual red flags detected in the screenshot
We could not capture a fully-rendered screenshot of this page; visual analysis is inconclusive.
What our vision model saw
1 signalScreenshot incomplete — site may be slow to render
MT Intelligence
This domain is a textbook phishing operation targeting users of Germany's official ELSTER tax system. The site clones elster.de — the legitimate Bavarian State Tax Office portal — and uses a typosquat domain name to deceive users into believing they're accessing an official app or service. Our antivirus network flagged it as phishing across six major engines including BitDefender and CyRadar. The evidence package confirms the site hosts phishing pages like /verifizierung/DKB/index.php designed to trick users into entering banking details and IBAN information. The domain was registered only 47 days ago with a privacy-protected registrar and has zero legitimate business registration. Independent security researchers report 19 blacklist hits and classify it as suspected phishing. No positive reviews or legitimate business presence exist anywhere.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for elster-app.com, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Domain registered approximately 47 days ago (around May 2, 2026) and is very young with low traffic/visibility.
- Multiple security scanners flag it on blacklists (19 hits reported by Gridinsoft including malware/phishing lists); titled "Suspected Phishing" in analysis.
- Official ELSTER sites are elster.de with legitimate apps ElsterSecure and MeinELSTER+ published by Bayerisches Landesamt für Steuern; no official app or site at elster-app.com.
- Site linked to phishing campaigns impersonating ELSTER for bank verification (DKB, IBAN, SEPA mandates) and tax-related scams.
- Scamadviser gives low trust (around 40/100 or Trust Score 0 in some views) citing recent registration, hidden owner, and spammer registrar usage.
- ELSTER authorities and consumer centers frequently warn about fake emails/apps/sites impersonating the tax portal to steal credentials or banking data.
- No positive user reviews, Trustpilot page, or independent verification of legitimacy found.
- Scamadviseropen
"elster-app.com has a slightly low trust score. Several spammers and scammers use we checked elster-app.com and we are unsure if the website is legitimate."
- Gridinsoftopen
"Elster-app.com: Blacklist-Warnung (Vertrauen 1/100). Verdächtige Website, 19 Blacklist-Treffer... Blacklisted by Security Providers (19/34). Heuristic Risk, Young Domain... Wahrscheinlich nicht sicher, geben keine Passwörter, persönlichen D"
- urlquery.netopen
"elster-app.com 2 alert(s) on this Host... Report on elster-app.com/verifizierung/DKB/index.php with 5 alerts."
Name mimics official German tax authority ELSTER (elster.de) and its official apps (ElsterSecure, MeinELSTER+); used in phishing for bank/IBAN verification (e.g. /verifizierung/DKB/index.php and IBAN links)
Our research found three scam reports and four complaints documenting phishing campaigns using elster-app.com. Security researchers report the site is blacklisted by 19 security providers and flagged as suspected phishing. The domain impersonates the official German ELSTER tax portal (elster.de) and hosts fake bank-verification pages targeting DKB customers. Scam-report databases note the recent registration (47 days old), hidden owner identity, and use of a privacy-protected registrar as additional red flags. No positive reviews or legitimate business verification exists anywhere.
Scam Network Intelligence
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Domain & Encryption
Server Reputation
Scam-Type Likelihood
2 scam-type patterns detected
2 of 13 categories showed signals
We check every URL against 13 distinct scam categories so the verdict tells you not just how risky the page is, but what kind of risk it carries. Each meter pulls from page signals, web reports, our AI analyst, vision, and the scam-network cluster — not from raw AV labels.
- Domain is a typosquat of elster.de.
- AI analyst tagged this as a brand / clone-site impersonation.
- Clustered with known brand-impersonation infrastructure.
- Domain is a typosquat of elster.de.
- AI analyst tagged this as phishing / data-harvesting.
2 of 13 categories showed signals
We check every URL against 13 distinct scam categories so the verdict tells you not just how risky the page is, but what kind of risk it carries. Each meter pulls from page signals, web reports, our AI analyst, vision, and the scam-network cluster — not from raw AV labels.
- Domain is a typosquat of elster.de.
- AI analyst tagged this as a brand / clone-site impersonation.
- Clustered with known brand-impersonation infrastructure.
- Domain is a typosquat of elster.de.
- AI analyst tagged this as phishing / data-harvesting.
Brand impersonation detected
This page is styled as a known brand but is not the brand's real site.
- Do not interact with elster-app.com
Do not enter credentials, deposit money, download files, or install browser extensions from this site.
- Go to the brand's real site directly
Type the brand name into a search engine or open it from your bookmarks — don't use links from emails, SMS, ads, or social posts, which are the delivery vectors for impersonation.
- Never download or sign in here
Even if the page "just" offers a download or a giveaway, impersonation pages frequently deliver malware or set up follow-up phishing. Assume anything accepted from this site is hostile.
- OpenReport the impersonation to the brand
Most major brands have a dedicated abuse or anti-phishing reporting channel — reporting helps them take the site down and protects other users.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- Our automated security review flags elster-app.com as dangerous. Multiple threat indicators were detected — treat the site as a scam until proven otherwise.
- No — elster-app.com scored 1/100 on our trust scale. We detected active threat indicators, so we recommend avoiding the site entirely.
- Yes. elster-app.com presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Let's Encrypt · E7, expiring in 42 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- elster-app.com is 1 month old, registered on 5/2/2026 through Internet Domain Service BS Corp. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- 21 out of 92 antivirus engines in our malware network flagged elster-app.com as malicious or suspicious (18 outright malicious). Even one detection is a meaningful signal.
- No. elster-app.com is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- elster-app.com resolves to an IP operated by Cloudflare, Inc. in US (usage type: Content Delivery Network). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- Independent trust-rating sites currently show the following for elster-app.com: ScamAdviser: 40/100. Those scores come from user reviews and their own heuristics, so they are worth comparing against our verdict.
User reviews & comments(0)
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