Hong Kong domain the most dangerous place to surf, report says

Jun 5, 2008, 5:42 GMT

HongKong - Websites ending with the Hong Kong domain .hk are the most dangerous places to surf on the internet, according to a report by the internet security company McAfee Inc.

The report, published Wednesday in California, said 19.15 per cent of all websites ending with .hk pose a security threat to web users.

The percentage took Hong Kong to the top of the risky domain list, a jump of 28 places compared with the same report last year and knocking the tiny island of Tokelau in the South Pacific off the number one spot.

China is the second most risky domain in the world with 11.76 per cent of websites ending with .cn found to be risky, compared with 3.73 per cent last year, McAfee said.

Finland (.fi) remained the safest place to surf for the second year running with 0.05 per cent of websites considered risky.

Japan also fared well with .jp earning the title of the world's second safest domain with 0.13 per cent sites deemed risky compared with 0.4 per cent last year.

Using its SiteAdvisor technology, McAfee analysed 9.9 million heavily trafficked websites in 265 countries plus generic domains such as .com or .net.

It tested for risky behaviour such as browser exploits, adware and spyware, Trojans, viruses and the likelihood of receiving spam and aggressive pop-up marketing.

In the Asia region, Hong Kong and China were followed by the Philippines (.ph) as the third most risky place with 7.72 per cent of sites posing a threat, South Korea (.kr) in seventh place with 2.39 per cent, Vietnam (.vn) in 10th place with 1.96 per cent, Taiwan (.tw) 12th with 1.47 per cent and Thailand (.th) 15th with 0.95 per cent.

Indonesia (.id) fared better in 17th place with 0.61 per cent of sites being designated risky, followed by Malaysia (.my) in 18th place with 0.4 per cent and New Zealand in 19th with 0.34 per cent.

Singapore (.sg) and Australia (.au) were joint second safest domains with 0.27 per cent of sites considered to pose security threats, McAfee said.

The most risky generic domain was .info with 11.8 per cent of all these sites posing a security risk, McAfee found, while .gov remained the safest.