Most Dangerous Internet Sites
Online security is a nightmare these days, with all the viruses, phishing, drive-by downloads, pop-ups, and other malware out there. How bad is it?
Researchers at SiteAdvisor, a Web security firm owned by McAfee, set out to chart the Internet’s worst “domains”–those suffixes you find at the end of Web addresses, such as those by country (.br for Brazil) and generic (.com or .org). Called Mapping the Mal Web, their report looked at 265 top level domains (TLDs) worldwide.
Some interesting points from the study:
• For major country domains, the riskiest ones are Romania (.ro) with 5.6 percent risky sites and Russia (.ru) with 4.5 percent risky sites.
• Island nations, known for offering free or anonymous registration, ranked highest on the danger list. Among them: Sao Tome/Principe (.st) off Africa, at a whopping 19 percent; Tokelau (.tk) in the South Pacific, at 10 percent; the Turks and Caicos (.tc) in the Caribbean, also at 10 percent; and the South Georgia/South Sandwich Islands (.gs) near Antartica, at 9 percent.
• Safest place on the Web: “.gov.” Restricted to U.S. government agencies, it was the only TLD in which no risky sites were found.
For more visit the McAfee SiteAdvisor study .
