New report identifies dangerous Web domains

[buckshotdots]

Interesting article I came across.


SAN JOSE, Calif. - When surfing the Internet for safe Web sites, not all domains are equal. Companies that assign addresses for Web sites appear to be cutting corners on security more when they assign names in certain domains than in others, according to a report to be released Wednesday by antivirus software vendor McAfee Inc.

McAfee found the most dangerous domains to navigate to are ".hk" (Hong Kong), ".cn" (China) and ".info" (information).

Of all ".hk" sites McAfee tested, it flagged 19.2 percent as dangerous or potentially dangerous to visitors; it flagged 11.8 percent of ".cn" sites and 11.7 percent of ".info" sites that way.

A little more than 5 percent of the sites under the ".com" domain — the world's most popular — were identified as dangerous.

rest of article here:
XXX

 

[briman1970]

I just saw that report tonight. Rep left for beating me to NamePros with it. :tu:

McAfee also has a .pdf report with some VERY extensive info about malware. It's REALLY well-designed (the illustrations are awesome) and a good read to boot. Here's the link to the PDF: http://mcafee.com/us/local_content/reports/sage_2008.pdf

 

[firefly]

nice pick up....Shame .info is there

 

[lpstong]

Yup just saw this as well. They also say the least risky extensions to have are:

Where McAfee found some of the least-risky domain names:

• ".gov" (government use), with 0.05 percent flagged;

• ".jp" (Japan), with 0.1 percent flagged and

• ".au" (Australia), with 0.3 percent flagged.

The report also said why people who ad such malicious sites et cetera to the .info, .cn and .hk are because they are usually the cheapest extensions to buy. The other risky extensions were the .ro and the .ru which were no surprise to me from seeint comments left in some blogs I have. But I was surprised that .info's were added