Homeβ€Ί News & Mediaβ€Ί actu.epfl.ch
Mostly Safe

Yes β€” actu.epfl.ch looks mostly safe

75/ 100 trust score
Industry: News & Media Checked Oct 27, 2026 News & Media average: 66 32 signals

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In plain English

This is the official news portal of EPFL, a well-known Swiss university. The domain has been around for 16 years, has a clean security record, and shows strong signs of legitimacy through its long web history and active social presence. The main gaps β€” missing legal pages and limited security headers β€” are minor shortcomings for a university news site, not signs of deception.

Cross-referenced 32 live signals from Google Safe Browsing, VirusTotal, WHOIS and more on Oct 27, 2026. How we score β†’

Where the score comes from

We look at six areas. Here's how actu.epfl.ch did in each.
85
Security

Strong security posture: modern TLS 1.3, a valid certificate from a well-known issuer, enforced HTTPS via HSTS, and the site is behind Cloudflare's edge infrastructure. No malware or phishing flags on any blacklist or Google Web Risk.

75
Identity

The site doesn't disclose a named owner or legal entity, which is typical for a university subdomain. The domain has a 16-year web archive history and resolves reliably. WHOIS is restricted, as expected for Swiss domains. A minor gap is no DNSSEC, but not a red flag here.

95
Reputation

Excellent reputation signals: 16 years of continuous web archive history, 100+ Hacker News mentions including highly upvoted stories, clean DNS blacklists, and no threats detected. This is a well-known academic institution's news portal, not a newcomer.

85
Transparency

The site is transparent about its identity: it's clearly EPFL's news section with a full about page, contact page with email and phone, active social media profiles on 5 platforms, and a multilingual interface. The branding is basic but consistent with a university site.

70
Compliance

Missing a dedicated privacy policy or terms of service. For a news and education site run by a public university, these are less critical than for a commercial shop, but their absence is still a minor gap. Most legitimate university sites in Switzerland do have legal pages.

70
Infrastructure

Decent infrastructure: fast load times, Cloudflare CDN, and structured data markup are positives. But there's no sitemap, no email handling via MX records, and only basic security headers beyond HSTS. For a news site these aren't dealbreakers, just not polished.

What we checked

The 32 signals behind this report.
Security & Transport
Certificate Issuer
Google Trust Services
Google Web Risk
Clean
HSTS Header
Present
Protective DNS
Not blocked
SSL Certificate
Valid
Search Cloaking
Not detected
Security Headers
1 of 6
Server
cloudflare
TLS Version
TLS 1.3
Identity & WHOIS
About Page
Found
Branding
Basic
Business Disclosure
Not found
Contact Info
Found
Legal Pages
Partial
Infrastructure & DNS
CDN
Cloudflare
DNS Blacklists
Clean
DNS Resolution
4 IP(s)
DNSSEC
Not enabled
Email (MX Records)
None
Hosting Network (ASN)
AS13335 CLOUDFLARENET
Page Load Time
238ms
Reputation & Reach
Hacker News
100+ stories since 2013
Page Heading
News EPFL
Page Language
en
Page Title
News - EPFL
Sitemap
Not found
Social Media Presence
5 platforms
Structured Data
Found
Tranco Rank
Not ranked
Web Archive History
16 years
Website Status
Online
robots.txt
Present

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actu.epfl.ch
75
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When you land on actu.epfl.ch, the first thing to notice is the domain itself β€” it's a subdomain of epfl.ch, which belongs to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. That alone is a strong trust signal. University news sites rarely impersonate themselves, and this one has a 16-year web archive trail to prove it.

The site scores well on fundamentals: modern encryption, clean blacklist history, and links to real social media profiles on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. EPFL students and staff will find news about campus research and events here. The missing privacy policy and terms of service are worth noting, but for a university news outlet they're not the same concern they'd be for a store handling payments.

If you're asking "is actu.epfl.ch safe?" β€” yes, it's the legitimate news arm of a respected university. The question "is actu.epfl.ch a scam" doesn't apply here; the evidence points firmly toward it being what it says it is. Just keep in mind that as a news site, it doesn't handle transactions or personal accounts, so the compliance gaps are minor in context.

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