Riskiest web sites are outed

McAfee finds 4.1 per cent of sites present an element of danger

5.5 per cent of sites are rated red or yellow

Each month internet users make more than 550 million clicks to risky web sites and even relatively safe domains like Germany (.de) or the UK (.uk) account for millions of risky clicks, according to a survey by McAfee.

McAfee analysed and ranked 265 top-level domains like Japan (.jp), France (.fr) and commercial (.com) based on its web safety tests for spyware, spam, exploits and scams. The report, Mapping the Mal Web, reveals surprisingly large differences in safety from one domain to another.

'When it comes to safety, it turns out that the web is no different than the physical world. There are safe neighbourhoods and safe web domains, and then there are places no one should ever visit,' said Mark Maxwell, senior product manager, McAfee.

McAfee SiteAdvisor, a free tool available at www.mcafee.com adds red, yellow, or green ratings to sites and search results based on proprietary tests of millions of Web sites representing more than 95 per cent of the trafficked web.

Red ratings are given to risky sites that fail one or more of McAfee’s tests for adware, spyware, viruses, exploits, spammy email, excessive pop-ups or strong affiliations with other red-rated sites. Green-rated sites passed each of these tests.

Yellow ratings are given to sites which pass McAfee’s safety tests but still contain nuisances, such as excessive pop-ups, warranting a user advisory. Green ratings are given to safe web sites.

The incidence of red and yellow sites varies dramatically across top-level domains, ranging from a low of 0.1 per cent for Finland (.fi) to a high of 10.1 per cent for the tiny island of Tokelau (.tk). Overall, 4.1 per cent of all sites tested by SiteAdvisor are rated red or yellow.

Some web activities, like registering at a site or downloading a file, are significantly more risky when done at certain domains. For example, giving an email address to a random info domain results in a stunning 73.2 per cent chance of receiving spammy e-mail.

The most risky large country domains are Romania (.ro, 5.6 per cent) and Russia (.ru, 4.5 per cent). These country domains are also the most likely to host exploit or 'drive-by-download' sites.

The riskiest generic domain is .info, with 7.5 per cent of its sites rated as risky. The second most risky generic domain is .com , with 5.5 per cent of sites rated as risky.

'For administrators of top-level domains, this study should serve as a wake-up call. Clearly, some countries are getting it right. And the more risky top level domains now have the role models they need to improve,' said Maxwell.