According to McAfee and their third annual “Mapping the Mal Web” report, more than a third of Cameroon domains (TLD of .cm) are infested with viruses or other types of malicious software (malware) and scams. Given that it’s very easy to mis-type .com as .cm, this presents as an opportunity to attackers and a headache for Internet users. Second place on the most-infested domains list goes to China (.cn), while Hong Kong (last year’s ‘winner’) is now far from the top.
McAfee analysed 27 million websites and 104 top-level domains using its SiteAdvisor and TrustedSource technology in compiling its report. SiteAdvisor tests websites for browser exploits, phishing, excessive pop-ups and malicious downloads, while TrustedSource offers a reputation system that tracks web traffic patterns, site behaviour, hosted content and more, to gauge site security risks.
The outcome of this report awarded first place, in the riskiest country domains online, to Cameroon’s “.cm”. In detail, 36.7 per cent of the country’s sites pose security risks. McAfee has interpreted this result, stating ”Because the domain .cm is a common typo for .com, many cybercriminals set up fake typo-squatting sites that lead to malicious downloads, spyware, adware and other potentially unwanted programs”.
Other risky domain names, following Cameroon, include: China (.cn), Samoa (.ws), the Philippines (.ph) and the former Soviet Union (.su). This is kind of counterintuitive to the first country that comes to mind when one thinks of malware. Also, surprisingly, last year’s “winner”, Hong Kong is now towards the middle of the list.
Finally, the safest places to visit are Japan (.jp), Ireland (.ie), Croatia (.hr), Luxembourg (.lu) and Vanuatu (.vu).
