Cyber Security Institute

Monday, March 12, 2007

McAfee maps malware risk domains

A global road map of the riskiest and safest places to surf online found Russian and Romanian sites among the top-level domains most commonly hosting malicious downloads, browser exploits, and scams.  A survey of 265 top-level domains by McAfee, dubbed Mapping the Mal Web, revealed large differences in safety from one domain to another.  The most risky large country domains were Romania (.ro, 5.6 per cent risky sites) and Russia (.ru, 4.5 per cent risky sites).  These East European country domains were the most likely to host exploit or “drive-by-download” sites run by hackers.  Even though the Netherlands (.nl), Germany (.de) and the United Kingdom (.uk) are all relatively safe country domains, each of their country domains account for more than 2 million clicks to high or medium-risk sites every month.

The survey - which aims to provide a guide book of the net’s most dangerous top level domains - also looked at generic top level domains.  Some web activities, like registering at a site or downloading a file, are significantly more risky when done at certain domains.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/12/malware_atlas/