Hong Kong Domains Most Dangerous

McAfee has released a new study that indicates that Hong Kong .hk domain names tend to be the most dangerous / malware-prone on the Web. The ongoing research has found that the virtual threats and risks are always changing, and the .hk domain went from being ranked 28th most risky in 2007 to the top spot in 2008.

The McAfee “Mapping the Mal Web Revisited” report reveals that Hong Kong domains (.hk) and China domains (.cn) rank as the riskiest online neighborhoods. 19.2% of all websites ending in .hk pose a security threat to web users. These sites contained adware, spyware, viruses, spam, excessive pop-ups, browser exploits or links to other red-rated sites. Although the risky sites may use .hk domains, not all of the dangerous sites will be based in Hong Kong – the domain may simply be chosen because it is inexpensive and unregulated. Many of the websites will be in English, regardless of domain.

Domains with .info are still the most risky generic domains, with 11.8% posing a security threat, and being the third most risky domain after .hk and .cn. The safest domains, by contrast, include Finland (.fi), Japan (.jp) and Norway (.no). Finland, holding the top spot this year, has only 0.5% of domains posing security threats.

Other findings from the survey:

• The chance of downloading spyware, adware, viruses or other unwanted software from surfing the Web increased 41.5% over 2007
• A Web surfer has a 1-in-20 chance of “hosing” the computer if a file is downloaded at random from the Internet
• Online adult sites are not more risky than other types of sites on the Web though, but when they are bad, they are really bad (in terms of spam & exploits)

Via CNet Tags: domains, .hk, hong kong, domain, mcafee, domain names, internet security, malware, malware report