Riskiest web domains to surf, search: McAfee

BANGALORE, INDIA: Africa’s Cameroon has overthrown Hong Kong as the web’s riskiest domain, according to McAfee’s third annual 'Mapping the Mal Web' report. At the opposite end, Japan is the safest country domain, landing in the top five safest domains for the second year in a row.

The most heavily trafficked web domain in the world, commercial (.com), jumped from the ninth to second most dangerous domain, while government (.gov) is the safest non-country domain.

Mike Gallagher, CTO, McAfee Labs remarked, “This report underscores how quickly cybercriminals change tactics to lure in the most victims and avoid being caught. Last year, Hong Kong was the riskiest domain and this year it is dramatically safer. Cybercriminals target regions where registering sites is cheap and convenient, and pose the least risk of being caught.”

Cameroon, a small African country that borders Nigeria, jumped to the number one spot this year with 36.7 percent of the .cm domain posing a security risk, but did not even make to the list last year. Because the domain .cm is a common typo for .com, many cybercriminals set up fake typo-squatting sites that lead to malicious downloads, spyware, adware and other potentially unwanted programs.

Following aggressive measures from .hk’s domain managers, to clamp down on scam-related registrations last year, Hong Kong fell 33 spots from the most risky domain in 2008 to the 34th most risky domain in 2009. Now only 1.1 percent of .hk sites pose a risk, whereas last year nearly one in five .hk web sites were risky.

Among country domains, the People’s Republic of China (.cn) and Samoa (.ws) remained in the top five most dangerous places in the last two years.

The report further revealed that sites registered to the Asia-Pacific web domains are significantly riskier than the overall web with 13 percent of sites posing a threat. This region includes the second riskiest domain with the People’s Republic of China (.cn) and also, ironically, the safest web domain with Japan (.jp). Ireland (.ie) happens to be Europe’s safest Web domain with only .1 percent risky sites.

McAfee SiteAdvisor tested web sites for browser exploits, phishing, excessive pop-ups and malicious downloads. McAfee TrustedSource technology is a comprehensive Internet reputation system, that analyzes web traffic patterns, site behavior, hosted content and more, to provide insight into site security risk.