Consumers should be aware of a number of things when surfing the net, and among them, domains such as Hong Kong (.hk), China (.cn) or Tokelau (.tk). The latest report by McAfee showed that .hk soared in 2008 to become the riskiest country TDL, joining generic TDL .info on the black list.

There have been no major differences in 2008 compared to 2007 in terms of percentages, the report unveiled; however, there have been a few changes in the hierarchy of the web safety landscape. That included .hk switching places with .tk as the most risky country TDL.

While some domains continue to be rated as red (avoid) or yellow (use caution), some domains seem to be significantly riskier than others. This was the case of .ro sites, McAfee said, adding that they found exploit code on 1.1 percent of all Romanian sites tested.

Thus, any .ro surfer is 1,559 percent more likely to encounter malicious drive-by code than the surfer to an average web site anywhere in the world, the report revealed.

However, the degree of security risk posed by a country domain does not necessarily associate the online activity with people in that country, researchers said, as most of the times cyber-criminals simply go trans-national.

The most popular domain on the Internet, .com, is the ninth riskiest overall with 5.3 percent, and the fourth riskiest generic TDL, McAfee’s “Mapping the Mal Web” report says.

Well, it can’t be all bad news! There are a few TDLs that pose less threat than others. The five least-risky of them are Slovenia (.si), Norway (.no), Japan (.jp), Governmental (.gov) and Finland (.fi).

So, what does it take to stay away from danger? According to McAfee, previous experience is not enough to stay safe online. Moreover, domains that used to be safe are now risky and vice-versa, the hierarchy can change every year.

No matter if you’re an IT expert, or a regular computer novice, staying safe online means getting the proper protection in terms of update security suite and why not, look for more information on web site safety rules.