Business Bytes
Renee Oricchio

Dot Danger: The Worst Domains on The Web

 

Security software maker, McAfee, has released its annual report, "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited 2008", listing in order the most dangerous domains to visit. For example, the one most of us frequent the most, sites ending in dot com or .com, rank #11 as most dangerous domains.

Topping the charts, however, is .hk. That's "hk", as in Hong Kong. According to McAfee, nearly one in five web sites ending in .hk pose some sort of security threat to web visitors. One more time; that's one in five sites. Yipes!

Coming in at #2: China's extension, .cn, with a roughly one in ten chance of hitting a shady site.

Where is it safe to go online? Finland, Ireland and Japan (.fi, .is, and .jp, respectively); and in that order, are deemed safest domains online today.

Walkaway thoughts from this study: block .hk on the company network, unless there's a business reason not too.

Mystery and intrigue alert: I'd give you the link to the actual report on the McAfee site. But the page is down.


Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio