Critical risk detected
10 of 92 antivirus engines flag this page (8 outright malicious). Our security review flagged this site as high-risk. Don't enter personal information, deposit money, or download files.
Is perceptivepumpkin.com legit or a scam?
Yes — this is almost certainly a scam.
14-year-old artist portfolio page weaponized with hidden AI prompt-injection instructions documented by security researchers.
Score breakdown
See the live page ↓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
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site.
Intelligence
The domain registered in 2011 and belongs to an active Virginia LLC, giving it strong legitimacy signals. Eight antivirus engines flagged the page as malicious because of the embedded adversarial text rather than any malware distribution. Palo Alto Networks and Hackread both published the site as a documented case study for Indirect Prompt Injection attacks that tricked AI agents into attempting unauthorized PayPal transfers. The page itself is a legitimate portfolio linking to Etsy, Redbubble, and Twitch accounts for the same artist. No scam reports, customer complaints, or fake-shop patterns appear in the evidence. The combination of old domain plus documented prompt-injection content places the site in the suspicious tier for ordinary visitors.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for perceptivepumpkin.com, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- The domain has been documented by cybersecurity researchers (Palo Alto Networks, Forcepoint) as a case study for Indirect Prompt Injection (IPI).
- The site contains hidden instructions designed to trick AI agents into performing unauthorized actions, such as attempting to send $5,000 via PayPal.me.
- The site owner appears to be a software developer and artist who has explicitly included 'ignore all previous instructions' style prompts on their own site as a defensive or experimental measure against AI scraping.
- The site is a legitimate personal business site (Perceptive Pumpkin Productions, LLC) that has been weaponized or used as a testbed for AI-based attack research.
- No evidence suggests the site owner is a malicious actor; rather, the site content is being ingested by AI agents which then execute the embedded adversarial instructions.
- Palo Alto Networksopen
"The example in Table 7 uses a prompt that redirects a viewer to a page from a legitimate online payment system... The prompt then attempts to send $5,000 to the attacker-controlled account."
- Hackreadopen
"Another site, perceptivepumpkin.com, used hidden steps to trick the agent into sending 5,000 Dollars via PayPal.me"
Identified as Perceptive Pumpkin Productions, LLC, based in Fairfax, VA.
Palo Alto Networks and Hackread both published the domain as a documented case study for Indirect Prompt Injection. Researchers showed that hidden instructions on the page caused AI agents to attempt unauthorized $5,000 PayPal transfers. The site owner is identified as a legitimate software developer and artist who included the adversarial text as an experimental or defensive measure. No scam reports or consumer complaints appear in the evidence package.
Domain Timeline
- Nov 3, 2011Domain registered
First appeared in WHOIS records — 15 years old today.
- Jul 14, 2026Latest security review — Flagged as dangerous
This scan re-ran every check; the current findings are detailed above.
perceptivepumpkin.com is an established domain now carrying threat signals. An older domain that starts tripping security checks is a classic pattern for an asset that was sold, repurposed, or compromised — the age alone is not reassurance.
Threat Detection
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Technical Details
domain · encryption · redirects · server reputation · referencedThe plumbing behind the site — who registered it, how it’s encrypted, where it’s hosted, and where it links out. A valid certificate or a calm server doesn’t mean the business is honest — scam sites pass these checks too. Use this to corroborate the verdict, not to overturn it.
Contact Verification
We fetched the page and looked for real-world contact details. Legitimate businesses almost always publish an email on their own domain, a phone number, and a postal address. Scam shops usually don't.
- No phone number listed on the page.
- No postal address visible on the page.
- Contact email on the site's own domain (business@perceptivepumpkin.com).
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1301http://perceptivepumpkin.com/
- 2200https://perceptivepumpkin.com/
Server Reputation
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
What to do
Avoid this site
Our automated review flagged enough risk that you should treat this site as unverified.
- Do not interact with perceptivepumpkin.com
Do not enter credentials, deposit money, download files, or install browser extensions from this site.
- Verify the business through independent channels
Check the company's social profiles, registry records, and search for recent news or reviews that are not hosted on the site itself.
- Never use irreversible payment methods
Crypto, gift cards, wire transfers, and cash apps offer zero buyer protection. Use a credit card or PayPal if you must pay.
- OpenShare your experience
If you have additional context, drop a comment below or post on the MalwareTips forum.
Final Verdict
Perceptive Pumpkin Productions is a 14-year-old personal portfolio site for an artist and software developer. The page contains hidden instructions that researchers documented as an Indirect Prompt Injection test case. Visitors should avoid pasting any page content into AI tools.
Safety FAQ
Common questions, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- perceptivepumpkin.com shows every sign of being a scam site — avoid interacting with it. 10 of 92 security engines flag it (8 as outright malicious). The domain is 14.7 years old through Network Solutions, LLC. This pattern matches throwaway sites built to take money or data and disappear.
- No — perceptivepumpkin.com scored just 1/100 on our trust scale, and we detected active threat indicators. We recommend avoiding it entirely: don't log in, pay, download anything, or connect a wallet.
- If you've already paid or handed over details on perceptivepumpkin.com, act quickly. 1) Contact your bank or card issuer immediately and ask to dispute the charge or open a chargeback — the sooner you act, the better your odds. 2) Report the site to the U.S. FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov or the FBI's IC3 at ic3.gov, and in the UK to Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk. 3) If you entered a password, change it on perceptivepumpkin.com and anywhere you reused it, and turn on two-factor authentication. 4) Watch your bank and email for follow-up fraud, and keep screenshots as evidence.
- Often yes, if you act fast. Payments made by credit or debit card can frequently be reversed through a chargeback or dispute — contact your bank right away and explain it was a fraudulent site. Bank transfers and gift-card or voucher payments are much harder to recover, but you should still report them to your bank and to the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov) or Action Fraud (actionfraud.police.uk). Avoid any "refund" or "recovery" service that contacts you first — it's usually a follow-up scam.
- Just viewing a scam page is usually low-risk on an up-to-date browser — the real danger is what it asks you to DO (enter details, download a file, send money). If you downloaded anything, run a full antivirus scan and treat the file as untrusted. If you entered a password or card number, change the password everywhere you reused it and contact your bank.
- You can report perceptivepumpkin.com through several official channels: the U.S. FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov, and — in the UK — Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk. You can also flag it to Google Safe Browsing (safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish) so other browsers warn about it, and report it to the company being impersonated if there is one. Reporting helps get scam sites taken down faster.
- Modern scams are built to look convincing. A valid SSL padlock, a polished template, stock photos, fake reviews, and a trust badge can all be added in minutes and prove nothing about who runs the site. Scammers buy cheap domains, clone real designs, and copy legal pages wholesale. That's exactly why an automated review that checks the domain's age, hosting, blacklists, and behaviour — rather than just how the page looks — is more reliable than a first impression.
- Yes. 10 of 92 antivirus and blocklist engines in our malware network flagged perceptivepumpkin.com, 8 of them as outright malicious. Even a single detection from a reputable engine is a meaningful warning, and multiple detections rarely happen by accident.
- No — perceptivepumpkin.com is not currently on the major browser blocklist feeds that Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge rely on. Note that blocklists can lag behind brand-new scam domains, so "not listed" is reassuring but not a guarantee on its own.
- perceptivepumpkin.com is 14.7 years old, registered on November 3, 2011 through Network Solutions, LLC. A multi-year registration history is one of the stronger signals against a scam, though it's never a guarantee on its own — established domains can still be misused.
- perceptivepumpkin.com resolves to an IP operated by InMotion Hosting, Inc. in US (Data Center/Web Hosting/Transit). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad — but hosting that doesn't match a brand's claimed country, or that sits on networks known for abuse, is one of the many signals we weigh alongside the verdict above.
- This report is a record of the scan run on July 14, 2026, and the verdict reflects that point in time. Scam sites change fast — they can go live, get flagged, or vanish within days — so if you believe something about perceptivepumpkin.com has changed, MalwareTips staff can run a fresh scan that re-checks every signal from scratch and republishes an updated verdict.
User reviews & comments(0)
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