Slashdot Mirror
Cameroon the New Hotbed of Malware
garg0yle writes "According to McAfee, more than a third of Cameroon domains (TLD of .cm) are infested with viruses or other not-so-fun party treats. Given that it's very easy to mis-type .com as .cm, this puts the computers of a lot of fat-fingered typists in peril. Second place on the most-infested domains list goes to China (.cn), while Hong Kong (last year's 'winner') is now comfortably middle-of-the-pack."
While I can believe that .cm is a mistype for .com, what about .co, .con, .om? They don't seem to be high risk websites. I also bet that .con is a more common mistype than .cm
I also wonder whether slashdot.og is infested with viruses.
I rarely miss the 'o' key altogether, more commonly I press a different one accidentally, like 'cpm' or 'con'.
Really? I've never done it. Never. /me goes to point .cm to 127.0.0.1 .
to just block the whole Net? That way, you can't visit any website, thus avoid all websites hosting malware. Either that or have a patched, updated browser, and use smart surfing habits.
Most modern browsers insert .com automatically if no top level domain exist in the URL.
Beef jerky time.
Given that it's very easy to mis-type .com as .cm, ...
I can safely say I've never done this. I've made other errors - such as ending up in Estonia's (.ee) web space on occasion, since I work in an electrical engineering department. But I can't believe leaving out the "o" from ".com" is particularly easy or at all common.
Now if you wanted to talk about Colombia (.co) being a frequent typo for .com domains, then I might find it more believable. I have done that on rare occasions.
#DeleteChrome
...they make those delightful coconut cookies. I think we can forgive them.
It's water under the bridge, but in hindsight, it would have been better to not create the alternate TLDs .cm, .co. While I'm at it, tell me there's a good reason we have augmented reality iPhones and 60 MPG cars but not web browsers that autocorrect non-existent TLDs.
Seriously, why doesn't every browser have a "I don't live in Cameroon or Colombia; auto-correct .cm and .co to .com, don't warn me when doing it, and don't bother me about this again" option? (I know, I know, .hosts and/or Firefox extensions. Still.)
typing *.cm instead of .com is as simple as having an o key that gets stuck occasionally and not noticing the typo. All it takes is a keyboard that needs a good cleaning and a user that isn't paying enough attention.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
.pron links
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Fact is that last year in an effort to sell more domains, the registrar responsible for the .hk TLD (HKIRC http://hkirc.hk/) were willing to sell to anyone as long as you could put down a credit card online. As a result the amount of spam and malware web sites using .hk sky rocketed. The .hk domain was frequently top of the Spamcop charts.
Eventually enough pressure was put on HKIRC to change their registration procedure to make it harder to register domains and this is the reason why .hk has fallen in the rankings. My guess is that the .cm registrar just cares about getting money and less about where their domains go.
Bo
Opendns has an option to automatically 'correct' .cm requests to .com, which I always turn on. If Cameroon does not want people doing this, then it would have to police it's domain closely, instead of using it as a cash cow.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I hereby denounce this article — and the pseudo-statistics in it — as racist!
Gebyy zl nff!..
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I prolly shouldn't do that, this machine I'd point to is full of current malware.
(if I'm on my analysis machine, that is...)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If so, change keyboards.
I see the real threat in letters getting mixed up (which probably does not matter so much in 3 letter TLDs, since I don't know of a cmo or ogr TLD) or a typo (.con, .prg), which also usually don't really result in anything damaging. .cm being mistyped as .cn might be a problem, though. But then again, it's like missing the flood to reach the drought, so...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In any case, if (as the article claims) one third of Cameroon domains host malware, the implication is that two thirds don't. I would be very curious to know what percentage of US domains host malware.
Regardless of the answer, the appropriate response is to use a robust browser and block individual sites, not block out whole nations. Otherwise one might just as well move to China.
That different nations treat their TLDs differently. Some sell them to anyone who wants one. You can register them as long as you are willing to pay whatever fee it is they ask. The .tv domain is one such domain. Others make the domains available, but only to people or organizations that meet certain requirements like citizenship. Canada (.ca) would be one like that. Any Canadian can have a .ca domain if they are willing to pay for it, but non-Canadians can't buy one. Still others only use their domain for government or internal functions. The .us domain was like that at one time. You could get it only as an entity like a county government or a high school or something (it is now open for registration). Finally some countries simply don't do anything with their TLD, it just isn't used at all and there's no way to get it.
So just because a TLD exists, doesn't mean it can be used for any given purposes.
Let's get real and understand that the real purpose of providing this "information" is marketing. It is there to reinforce the message that the world is hopelessly infected with computer viruses and you absolutely MUST have the offerings of McAffee and other anti-virus software vendors. I'm not even sure why anyone would believe it is true.
This is my sig.
Disabling the messenger service will get rid of ONE of Microsoft's Security holes, but there are plenty more which attract 114,000 virii. So, to get RID of malware, just get rid of Microsoft and install a good open source software such as www.kubuntu.org instead. ultimate acai max
There will always be a worst and best in this category, as in anything you do in life. The problem is when it is deliberately set to that which happens to be .cm (which could be a mistype for many people)...if you think of whether this was intentional on the hackers part, you better believe it.
It could be any of the countries that have domains, and have no real talent for programming websites, but in the end, .cm extension, so should they not be partially responsible too, for at least quick testing the sites vulnerability with a tool or something....and if they find anything, the website owners are responsible to fix it, or get their vulnerable or compromised websites taken down.
you have to wonder, most are hosted on regular ISPs that offer the
That's just my 2 cents though
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
Once just recently - I was holding my infant daughter so had to type one-handed.
OpenDNS caught the error and warned me away from a malware site. Don't remember where I was going at the time.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
To block any top level domain? I mean like an entry in the hosts file, etc.....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
That's just lame, I've never seen anyone (including me) misspell com for cm or cn. I think someone at godaddy or another registrar is trying make a quick buck here, as in "Guys! Go register .cm and .cn for all your domains".
Buyer beware
I have not heard that country mentioned since Eddie Murphy disguised himself as an exchange student from Cameroon in 'Trading Places' back in the 80's.
"You can't really dust for vomit" --Nigel Tufnel
Yet again, someone has a logical disconnect between chair and keyboard. Common occurrences such as these should not surprise me, but I'm always surprised by a lack of common sense. It's amazing how many people think "caveat emptor" is an hors d'oeuvre that should be served on crackers.
It's not the fucked up websites hosting malware that put computers at risk. It's the fucked up pile of shit Windows that puts computers at risk. If Windows didn't suck donkey dicks, the malware wouldn't even exist.
I want to grow up to be like Bill Gates: write shitty fucked up code then write code to exploit the holes in my shitty fucked up code, then charge the users for more shitty fucked up code that claims to fix the holes but doesn't, and repeat that cycle until I'm a billionaire too.
How long will it take for Macroturd to lobby for hate-crime legislation to outlaw Windows bashing?
Windows, the poster child for the "How To Fuck Up A Computer Foundation".