McAfee has released the second annual “Mapping the Mal Web” report which researched the riskiest and safest domain names on the Web. The new report reveals that 19.2% of all Web sites ending in the “.hk” domain (Hong Kong) pose a security threat to Web users!
The McAfee report further says that China (.cn) is second riskiest domain name at over 11% threat. Finland (.fi) remains the safest online destination for the second year with 0.05%, followed by Japan (.jp).
A study of generic domain names reveals that 11.8% of all sites ending in .info posing a security threat and is the third most dangerous domain overall while government websites (.gov) remained the safest generic domain. The most popular domain, .com, is the ninth riskiest overall.
McAfee analyzed 9.9 million heavily trafficked Web sites found in 265 different country (those ending in country letters e.g. Brazil .br) and generic (those ending in .net or .info for example) domains. The study compared the ratings of sites found in each of the 265 country and generic domains and ranked them by the number of risky Web sites found in each domain that contained adware, spyware, viruses, spam, excessive pop-ups, browser exploits or links to other red-rated sites.
The full report titled Mapping the Mal Web Revisited (.pdf) is available for download online. You can study the red and yellow marked domain names in detail.
Did you know Google displays a warning message with search results when they identified sites that may install malicious software on your computer. They are working in collaboration with StopBadware.org, a “Neighborhood Watch” campaign aimed at fighting badware.