Software security company McAfee named Hong Kong’s “.hk” the world’s most dangerous domain. According to a report released this month, over 19 percent of “.hk” sites contain malware, viruses, high rates of spam, or aggressive pop-up ads. The report was compiled using McAfee’s SiteAdvisor software in comparing 74 top-level domains. China’s “.cn” comes in second with over 11 percent of its sites found to be similarly hazardous.
According to the study, Finland’s “.fi” ranks as the safest with only 0.05 percent hazardous sites.
One Hong Kong based security analyst points out potential flaws in the survey. “McAfee are only looking at the top-level domain bit, they are not looking at the location of the server,” said Richard Stagg, director and managing consultant at Handshake Networking, a vendor-independent security consultancy. “They’re not paying attention to where sites are actually hosted.”
Stagg points out that many spammers and malware authors choose domain registrations in foreign countries where it’s difficult to shut those domains down.