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McAfee Picks the Most Dangerous TLDs

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the all-fear-dot-vg dept.

CWRUisTakingMyMoney writes "Companies that assign addresses for Web sites appear to be cutting corners on security more when they assign names in certain domains than in others, according to a report to be released Wednesday by antivirus software vendor McAfee Inc. McAfee found the most dangerous domains to navigate to are .hk, .cn, and .info. Of all .hk sites McAfee tested, it flagged 19.2 percent as dangerous or potentially dangerous to visitors; it flagged 11.8 percent of .cn sites and 11.7 percent of .info sites that way. A little more than 5 percent of the sites under the .com domain — the world's most popular — were identified as dangerous."

13 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Which is more dangerous, then? by Hawthorne01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    5% of .coms, or 19% of .hk's? On a percentage basis, the .hk, .info, etc. But as a whole, my money's on .com's?.

    Bad math = bad reporting.

    --
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
  2. Why the hell... by Jaysyn · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...would anyone want to take security advice from McAffe?

    --
    There is a war going on for your mind.
  3. not their problem by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Companies that assign addresses for Web sites appear to be cutting corners on security more when they assign names in certain domains than in others"
    um since when is that the registrar's responsibility? they just point a domain name at an IP address-- that's the extent of the service.

    1. Re:not their problem by aredubya74 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. I'd be much more interested in looking at the stats by assigned IP blocks. That way, network admins could blacklist those ranges at their edge, adding exceptions as needed. It's a tough game to play, but it would also give admins an idea as to what ISPs are leaving obvious botnets intact and which ones aren't.

      --

      RW

  4. sorry, but i just don't get it... by ketamine-bp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i live in Hong Kong.

    here, if we are to register domain names, especially .com.hk, we need business registration to get it registered, same goes for .edu.hk, .org.hk etc.

    the possible exception would be .hk, but i think the HKNIC (i forgot the name..) does have reasonable abuse TOS that these bad things get cancelled... so i would be glad if they could provide us with the domain names they flagged 'dangerous' and let's see how it goes....

  5. Age of website? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd bet if they would find an even better correlation if they looked at the age of the website's domain registration, not the domain it was registered under.

  6. Re:I wonder... by cryptodan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder where .xxx would've come in if it had been created. It would be 69%.
  7. Chinese domains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The problem with .cn domains: 30 minutes after you surf there, you want to surf there again...

  8. Interesting bits by rock56501 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I am willing to bet that there are a lot more .com site's registered than .cn or .info or whatnot, so the fact that 5% of the .com's are flagged is huge, seeing that most people think about going to .com's before anything else.

    One other interesting note is that .05% of .gov's are listed as dangerous. So is that like from when the www.nsa.gov website left that tracking cookie on your computer or is there a actual government website out there that is actually dangerous to visitors?

  9. But what about .nu? by mangu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Home of the complete goatse collection. Enjoy yourselves!

    1. Re:But what about .nu? by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Funny

      My God, I though you were joking. And here I was, thinking that goatse was only 1 image.

      Thanks dude, that's 12 extra therapy sessions for me.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    2. Re:But what about .nu? by css-hack · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't know what's worse. The fact that I clicked, or the fact that it's already slashdotted.

  10. Only on Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...would a link to the full set of Goatse pictures be moderated "Interesting"