McAfee: The Most Dangerous Top-Level Internet Domains

by Brian Prince

The most heavily trafficked domain in the world went from No. 2 to No. 1 this year, with a weighted risk of 31.3 percent. Slightly more than 6 percent of the 15.5 million, .com sites McAfee analyzed were risky, but when weighted by the total number of risky sites worldwide, the risk ranking was 31.3 percent.

The .info domain had a weighted risk ratio of 30.7 percent. That is roughly double what it was in 2009 when it was ranked No. 5.

The .vn domain was ranked 39th last year. This time, the domain came in with a weighted risk of 22.4 percent. Fifty-eight percent of the 24,988 .vn sites were found to be risky, but the weighted risk dropped due to the domains share of risky sites worldwide.

Last year, Cameroons .cm was ranked the most dangerous domain on the net. This year, it dropped to No. 4, with a weighted risk of 22.2 percent.

Armenias .am domain was ranked No. 5, with a weighted risk of 12.1 percent. Last year it was ranked 23. McAfee reported it analyzed a total of 3,145 sites, of which 760 were found to be malicious.

The five safest TLDs were .travel (travel and tourism industry), .edu (educational), .jp (Japan), .cat (Catalan) and .gg (Guernsey).

“Singapore (.sg) deserves recognition for falling in risk from last years No. 10 slot to No. 81 this year; Venezuela (.ve) dropped from 21 to 88 this year; and the Philippines (.ph) moved from No. 6 in 2009 to No. 25 this year,” McAfee said in the report.

McAfee only evaluated TLDs for which it had results for 2,000 or more live sites. However, two low-volume TLDs would have made the com-panys top five if they had been included: .sn (Senegal), which had a 33 per-cent risk, and British Indian Ocean Territorys .io (11.5 percent risk).