Is govtop.one legit or a scam?
A malicious Government of India clone used in a cyber espionage campaign to distribute the DcRAT spyware via fake tax notifications.
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
4 of 92 antivirus engines flag this page (3 outright 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
Our analysis confirms this domain is part of a targeted cyber espionage campaign known as Operation DragonReturn. The site hosts a pixel-perfect clone of the Indian Ministry of Finance tax portal to lure victims into downloading a malicious ZIP file. Multiple security engines, including Sophos and Forcepoint, have flagged the domain for phishing and malware delivery. The domain was registered only 18 days ago, which is a common tactic for disposable attack infrastructure. Technical fingerprints show the site uses steganography to hide its malicious payload within image files to bypass traditional security filters.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for govtop.one, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Domain registered approximately 18 days ago (around early June 2026).
- Used in Operation DragonReturn, a China-nexus cyber espionage campaign (attributed with medium-to-high confidence, overlaps with Silver Fox) targeting Indian Ministry of Finance / tax infrastructure.
- Hosts lure page at govtop.one/incometax that mimics official Government of India tax notification (Office Memorandum, reference No. TAX/PEN/2026-142, bilingual, GoI emblem) to trick users into downloading malicious ZIP containing DcRAT.
- Delivers multi-stage DcRAT malware with steganography (payload hidden in background.jpg), fileless .NET execution, AMSI bypass, process injection, persistence as fake "Windows Mixed Reality Service", and screen capture/data exfiltration.
- C2 infrastructure includes kkxqbh.top and specific IPs (e.g. 223.26.63.40:2671); payloads rotated for 0/66 VT detection as of mid-June 2026.
- Report published June 26, 2026 by Seqrite Labs; campaign active since May 2026 during Indian ITR filing season.
- No mentions on review sites, Reddit, Trustpilot, or ScamAdviser; no legitimate business presence or positive references found.
- Seqrite Labsopen
"The attachment contains an embedded URL, govtop[.]one/incometax. When a user clicks on the link, they are redirected to a webpage designed to appear legitimate and generate trust."
- Seqrite Labsopen
"purpose-built malicious infrastructure hosted on govtop.one, and a multi-stage DcRAT deployment chain"
Page at /incometax impersonates Government of India Office Memorandum with GoI emblem, tax penalty references (IT Act sections), and fake tax notification to lure downloads
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
1 scam-type patterns detected
1 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.
- AI analyst tagged this as a brand / clone-site impersonation.
- Clustered with known brand-impersonation infrastructure.
1 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.
- AI analyst tagged this as a brand / clone-site impersonation.
- Clustered with known brand-impersonation infrastructure.
Brand impersonation detected
This page is styled as a known brand but is not the brand's real site.
- Do not interact with govtop.one
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 govtop.one as dangerous. Multiple threat indicators were detected — treat the site as a scam until proven otherwise.
- No — govtop.one scored 1/100 on our trust scale. We detected active threat indicators, so we recommend avoiding the site entirely.
- Yes. govtop.one presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Google Trust Services · WE1, expiring in 71 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- govtop.one is 18 days old, registered on 6/9/2026 through Dynadot Inc. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- 4 out of 92 antivirus engines in our malware network flagged govtop.one as malicious or suspicious (3 outright malicious). Even one detection is a meaningful signal.
- No. govtop.one is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- govtop.one 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.
- This is a permanent record of the scan run on June 27, 2026. The verdict and evidence above reflect that scan and do not change on their own. If circumstances around govtop.one have changed, MalwareTips staff can run a fresh scan, which re-runs every check from scratch and publishes an updated report.
User reviews & comments(0)
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