Report Lists Riskiest Country Web Sites for Malicious Downloads

Today, McAfee, Inc. announced the results of a research report that lists the riskiest, and the safest, places to surf and search on the Web. McAfee analyzed and ranked 265 top-level domains like Japan (.jp), France (.fr) and Commercial (.com) based on Web safety tests for spyware, spam, exploits and scams. The report, "Mapping the Mal Web," revealed surprisingly large differences in safety from one domain to another. This global portrait estimates that each month, Internet users make more than 550 million clicks to risky Web sites and that even relatively safe domains like Germany (.de) or the United Kingdom (.uk) account for millions of risky clicks.

"When it comes to safety, it turns out that the Web is no different than the physical world," said Mark Maxwell, senior product manager of McAfee Consumer and Small Business. "There are safe neighborhoods and safe Web domains, and then there are places no one should ever visit."

Among the key findings of the study are:

• Some Web activities, like registering at a site or downloading a file, are significantly more risky when done at certain domains. For example, giving an e-mail address to a random .info domain results in a stunning 73.2 percent chance of receiving spam e-mail.
• The most risky large country domains are Romania (.ro, 5.6 percent risky sites) and Russia (.ru, 4.5 percent risky sites). These country domains are also the most likely to host exploit or "drive-by-download" sites.
• .info is the riskiest generic domain, with 7.5 percent of its sites rated as risky. .com is the second most risky generic domain, with 5.5 percent of sites rated as risky.
• Three of the five least risky country domains are Nordic countries -- Finland (0.10 percent), Norway (.no, 0.16 percent) and Sweden (.se, 0.21 percent). Iceland (.is, 0.19 percent) and Ireland (.ie, 0.11 percent) round out the top five least risky country domains.
• .gov is the only frequently tested domain for which McAfee has found no risky sites. .gov is only available to United States government agencies.
• Even though the .com domain is only the 5th most risky domain by rank, its huge popularity magnifies its impact on search and browsing risk dramatically.
• Even though the Netherlands (.nl), Germany (.de) and the United Kingdom (.uk) are all relatively safe country domains, ranking 31st, 33rd and 51st most risky respectively, each of their country domains account for more than 2 million clicks to risky sites every month. Likewise Japan (.jp) is ranked 57th most risky and yet risky rated .jp sites receive an estimated 1.6 million clicks each month.

Low or no cost domain registration and minimal domain oversight appear to drive at least some of the higher levels of risk found at some top-level domains. For example, one reason the .biz domain may be preferred by spammers is because .biz domains are available for immediate use, rather than after a typical 24 hour waiting period -- a critical advantage in beating anti-spam services and blacklists.

"For administrators of top-level domains, this study should serve as a wake-up call. Clearly, some countries are getting it right. And the more risky top level domains now have the role models they need to improve," added Maxwell. "For consumers, this study is a stark reminder that they need help navigating the Web safely."