SAFE

No threats detected

All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.

Security Review

Is uw.edu legit or a scam?

Our verdict:Safe· 96/100

Official University of Washington homepage with 1999 domain registration, clean security scans, and verified institutional status.

uw.eduScanned 1h ago
0
Trust score
SAFE
Score breakdown
Heuristics 99·MT 95
Screenshot of uw.eduSee the live page ↓
Positive signals (4)
Antivirus clearNot on major blacklistsEncrypted connectionClean server reputation
View density

Analysis Summary

Threat Intelligence
0/92
All engines report clean
Domain Age
Registration date unknown
Intelligence
Safe
Low likelihood · 95% confidence

Website Preview

Screenshot of uw.edu
LIVE RENDER
uw.edu

Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site. See full visual analysis →

Visual 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.

0
/ 100
No visual red flags

No scam visual patterns detected

The screenshot displays a professionally designed, fully-rendered homepage for the University of Washington with no visual indicators of fraud or malicious intent.

Visual risk0/100

What our vision model saw

5 signals

Professional layout consistent with a major academic institution

High-quality original photography and branding elements

Functional navigation menu with standard university categories

Absence of urgency tactics, fake trust badges, or intrusive pop-ups

Clear links to internal university services like MyUW and Libraries

Intelligence

Advanced threat intelligence
Analysis
Low scam likelihoodengineMT · Guardiantrust95/100
MT AgentLive web researchVisual inspection
0%
Confidence
The page loads the legitimate uw.edu domain that has served as the primary web address for the University of Washington since March 1999. Zero engines flagged the site, the hosting IP carries a perfect abuse score, and the SSL certificate is valid from a recognized issuer. The visual analysis confirms a professional academic layout with no urgency tactics or suspicious elements. Web research confirms the domain belongs to the established public university founded in 1861, with no scam reports or complaints found. The combination of long domain history, institutional verification, and clean technical signals establishes this as a trusted educational site.
Full dossier
Analysis complete

Page Content

The homepage displays standard university navigation including MyUW, Libraries, UW Medicine, and campus directories. Body text references academic programs, research centers, admissions, and campus news with no promotional offers, login forms, or data collection prompts. External resources load from washington.edu, uwmedicine.org, and uwb.edu, all consistent with the legitimate University of Washington network.

Infrastructure

The site resolves to IP 34.168.51.100 with a zero abuse score and no prior reports. SSL is issued by InCommon RSA OV SSL CA 3 and remains valid for 186 days. One cross-domain redirect occurs but stays within the official university domain family. No malware or phishing signatures were detected by any of the 92 engines.

Domain History

The domain uw.edu was registered on March 5, 1999 and is managed by UW Information Technology. It serves as the primary official domain for the University of Washington, a public research university established in 1861. The long registration period and institutional ownership provide strong continuity signals.

Web Reputation

Independent review aggregators assign the domain a high trust score of 86.6/100. No scam reports, complaints, or negative mentions appear in search results. The university itself publishes warnings about phishing attempts that impersonate UW staff, reinforcing that uw.edu is the authentic channel.

What this means for you

Visitors can safely browse course information, access MyUW services, and follow official university links. Any communications claiming to be from UW that arrive via email or third-party sites should still be verified against the official @uw.edu or @u.washington.edu addresses.

Positive Signals
5
  • Domain registered March 5, 1999 and managed by UW Information Technology.
  • Zero detections across 92 antivirus engines and clean browser blocklist status.
  • Hosting IP carries zero abuse reports and a perfect reputation score.
  • Business registration confirms active status as the official University of Washington domain.
  • Professional academic layout with no urgency tactics or suspicious elements.
AI Recommendation
Browse freely for official university information. Verify any UW-related emails or links against official @uw.edu addresses before entering credentials.
Next-gen fraud intelligence
Evidence-backedCross-checked

Web Research Findings

Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for uw.edu, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.

Business registration
Active · USA
Site traces back to an actively registered business.
Clone check
Not a clone
No well-known site's layout or branding detected here.
Typosquat check
No look-alike match
The domain doesn't resemble any well-known brand's spelling.
Web mentions
1 positive
Key findings
5 headline facts from open-web research
  • The domain uw.edu is the official primary web address for the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle.
  • The domain was registered on March 5, 1999, and is managed by UW Information Technology (UW-IT).
  • The university explicitly warns users about phishing scams that impersonate UW employees or departments to steal NetID credentials.
  • Official university communications and email addresses end in either @uw.edu or @u.washington.edu.
  • The site is highly ranked and verified as a legitimate educational institution by multiple web safety tools.
Positive reviews (1)
Quotes indicating the site is legitimate.
  • Scam Detectoropen

    "uw.edu is an authentic, safe website, given all the risk factors and data numbers analyzed in this in-depth review. The algorithm gives this business the following rank: 86.6/100."

Business registration
Status: active · USA

Official domain for the University of Washington, a public research university established in 1861.

Research summary
Narrative write-up from our AI analyst, grounded on the facts above

Our research found the domain uw.edu is the official primary web address for the University of Washington, registered March 5, 1999 and managed by UW Information Technology. The university explicitly warns users about phishing attempts impersonating UW staff. No scam reports or complaints were identified across web sources.

Threat Detection

Antivirus Engines

Clean pass · verified
Clean across 92 engines

We cross-check every URL against our antivirus network of 92 malware and blacklist engines. None of them flagged this URL in the last scan.

0Malicious0Suspicious59Harmless92Engines
Clean
Kaspersky
Clean
Bitdefender
Clean
Microsoft
Not in pass
ESET-NOD32
Not in pass
Avira
Not in pass
Sophos
Clean
Fortinet
Clean
Google Safebrowsing
Clean
Emsisoft
Clean

No engine detections. The URL passed every antivirus and blacklist engine we queried in this scan. Stay vigilant — AV coverage is only one signal among many.

Security Scans

Blacklist Check
Not flagged on major threat lists

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.

Google Safe Browsing
Not listedCheck ↗
VirusTotal
Not listedCheck ↗
AbuseIPDB
Not listedCheck ↗

Technical Details

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.

What We Found
No clear contact details on the page
Emails on site's domainNone
Phone numbersNone
Postal addressNot listed
Linked social profiles8
Signal Summary
Several contact red flags
  • No contact email found anywhere on the page.
  • No phone number listed on the page.
  • No postal address visible on the page.
  • Links to 8 social profiles.

Domain & Encryption

Encryption Certificate
StatusValid
ProtocolTLSv1.3
IssuerInCommon, LLC · InCommon RSA OV SSL CA 3
ExpiresJan 13, 2027 (186d)
Self-signedNo
Hosting & Technology
HostingGoogle LLC
Server locationUS
Web serverApache
Platform / CMSWordPress
PopularityTop 100k worldwide

Redirect Chain

Hops
1
Cross-domain
Yes
Lookalike
No
Punycode
No
  • 1302http://uw.edu/
  • 2200http://www.washington.edu/cross-domain

Server Reputation

Abuse Intelligence
Confidence score0%
Reports on file0
ISPGoogle LLC
Usage typeData Center/Web Hosting/Transit

Referenced Domains

Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.

What to do

Still, stay alert

No major threat indicators — but a clean scan does not guarantee every page is safe, and phishing emails routinely spoof real domains.

  • Double-check the exact URL in your address bar

    Confirm you are actually on uw.edu and not a lookalike like u-w.edu.com or an IDN homoglyph.

  • Use a password manager

    Password managers only auto-fill on the exact domain they were saved for — they refuse to fill lookalike domains, which is the single best phishing defence.

  • Discuss this site on the forum

    If you have first-hand experience with this site — good or bad — share it with the MalwareTips community.

    Open

Final Verdict

0
Trust / 100
Final Verdict·uw.edu
SAFE

This is the official homepage of the University of Washington. The domain has been registered since 1999, shows clean scans across all engines, and carries verified business registration as a public research university.

Browse freely for official university information. Verify any UW-related emails or links against official @uw.edu addresses before entering credentials.

AV engines
92
Domain age
Flagged
0
Scan another URL
Security review completemalwaretips.com/url-scan

Safety FAQ

Common questions, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.

  • Our automated security review found no threat indicators on uw.edu, so it appears legitimate. All 92 antivirus engines we queried report it clean, it ranks among the world's most-visited sites, Even so, always double-check the exact address in your browser, because phishing emails routinely spoof real, trusted domains like this one.
  • uw.edu passed our automated checks with a trust score of 96/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged it at the time of the last scan, and its signals line up with an established, legitimate site. Treat any unexpected login prompt or payment request on it with the same caution you would anywhere.
  • Yes — and this is worth understanding. Even trustworthy domains get spoofed in phishing emails (a fake message that only looks like it's from uw.edu), and legitimate sites are occasionally compromised on specific pages. A clean verdict means the site itself checks out today; it does not mean every email or link claiming to be from uw.edu is genuine. Always reach the site by typing the address yourself rather than clicking links in unexpected messages.
  • No — all 92 antivirus and blocklist engines in our malware network currently report uw.edu as clean. That's a good sign, though antivirus coverage is only one of the many signals we weigh, and brand-new scam sites can appear clean before vendors catch up.
  • No — uw.edu 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.
  • Yes — uw.edu presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by InCommon, LLC · InCommon RSA OV SSL CA 3, valid for another 186 days. Important caveat: SSL only encrypts the connection between you and the site — it does not verify who runs it. Almost all scam sites now have valid SSL too, so a padlock alone never means "safe".
  • uw.edu resolves to an IP operated by Google LLC 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.
  • Yes — uw.edu ranks in the global top 100,000 most-visited sites, which means it has substantial real-world traffic. Genuine popularity doesn't automatically make a site safe, but throwaway scam domains almost never reach this level of traffic, so it's a meaningful point in the site's favour.
  • This report is a record of the scan run on July 11, 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 uw.edu has changed, MalwareTips staff can run a fresh scan that re-checks every signal from scratch and republishes an updated verdict.
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This report is generated automatically by combining threat intelligence, domain signals, and an AI security analyst. It is informational, not legal advice. Always use your own judgement before sharing personal information or money online.