.gov sites safest, says study
p2pnet.net news:- Canadian sites are among the safest in the Americas, says a new study by security company McAfee. But US web pages are close to being the most dangerous, it says.
The safest sites online end in .gov, only available to US government agencies, but .edu is also “quite safe”.
The McAfee graph on the right gives a break-down.
Web sites were tested for excessive pop-ups, other fraudulent practices, and browser exploits. Browser exploits, also known as drive-by-downloads, enable viruses or spyware to install on a consumer’s computer without their consent and often without their knowledge.
Downloads were analyzed by installing software on test computers and checking for viruses and any bundled adware, spyware or other unwanted programs.
Sign-up forms were completed using a one-time use email address so the volume and “spamminess” (commercial content of email) could be checked, as well as the use of tactics to trick spam filter software.
Feedback from individual users and site owners, plus analysis by McAfee SiteAdvisor staff, were also included, says the study.
Red ratings were awarded to sites that failed one or more of these tests. Yellow ratings were given to sites which “merit caution” before using.
The most risky large countries are Romania (.ro, 5.6% risky sites) and Russia (.ru, 4.5% risky sites), and their TLDs (top-level domains) are also the most likely to host exploit sites, says the company.
.info is the riskiest generic TLD, with 7.5% of its sites rated as risky. .com is the second most risky generic TLD, with 5.5% of sites rated as risky.
“Even though the .com TLD is only the 5th most risky TLD by rank, its huge popularity magnifies its impact on search and browsing risk dramatically. 86.6% of clicks to red and yellow rated sites go to .com sites,” says McAfee.
The Netherlands (.nl), Germany (.de) and the United Kingdom (.uk) are all relatively safe TLDs, ranking 31st, 33rd and 51st most risky, but each of their TLDs account for more than 2 million clicks to red and yellow sites every month. Likewise Japan (.jp) is ranked 57th most risky and yet red and yellow rated .jp sites receive an estimated 1.6 million clicks each month.
You’re almost 12 times more likely to encounter a drive-by-download while surfing Russian domains as Columbian ones, says the report, going on that registering at a web site in India results in a 4.3% chance of being spammed.
Taking the same action with a domain registered in China yields a 7.2% chance.
Five-point-two percent of Vietnamese Web sites have risky downloads, but only 0.5% of Singaporean sites host such files.
Casual Web surfers visit risky Dutch Web sites 2.7 million times every month
A casual Web surfer is more than five times as likely to encounter an exploit site while browsing a .nu or .ru site than he is while surfing the .com TLD, says McAfee, continuing:
“In fact, the tiny island of Niue and the massive Russia vie for the domain most frequently used to launch an exploit or drive-by-download type attack. While rare – just 0.45% and 0.43% of sites tested, respectively – exploits are arguably one of the most dangerous kinds of threats which Internet users face today because successful exploits can lead to permanent computer failure and identity theft.”
Four of the five least risky country TLDs are Nordic countries, says the report:
- Finland (0.10%)
- Norway (0.16%)
- Sweden (0.21%)
- Iceland (0.19%)
- Ireland (0.11%)
“This could be due to governing bodies employing stricter regulations of these domains,” says McAffee, adding, “Registrations in Norway are limited to companies registered with the government. Prior to 2003, Finland and Sweden had similar requirements.”
Also See:
McAfee – Mapping the Mal Web, March 12, 2007
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