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.
