Country codes to be wary of

John Yunker recently posted an entry on his blog entitled The world’s most dangerous country codes following the release of a report from McAfee.

The most dangerous country codes are:

1. Cameroon (.cm)
2. PR of China (.cn)
3. Samoa (.ws)
4. Philippines (.ph)
5. Former Soviet Union (.su)

But what we really wanted to know was, why are they dangerous? According to the McAfee report, these five country domain codes pose the greatest security risk to visitors. The reports states:

“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.”

It doesn’t necessarily mean that the cyber criminals are based in these countries, but they target regions where registering sites is cheap and convenient, and pose the least risk of being caught, explained Mike Gallagher, McAfee’s chief technology officer.

“The most heavily trafficked Web domain in the world, commercial (.com), jumped from the ninth to second most dangerous domain, while government (.gov) is the safest non-country domain,” the report found.

But all is not lost for the countries topping the danger list. Hong Kong fell from 1^st to 34^th in just one year after domain managers cracked down on dodgy registrations.

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