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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Be careful overseas — on the Web at least

By Bob Keefe | Wednesday, June 4, 2008, 01:45 PM

A study just out from computer security company McAfee Inc. shows the most dangerous Web sites to visit when it comes to viruses, “phishing” and other Web attacks are in Hong Kong, whose Internet domain names end in .hk.

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Other so-called top-level domains that are flush with bad stuff for Web users are in China, the Philippines, Romania and Russia, according to the study.

U.S. sites (the ones than end with the .us tag, not the .com tag) are the most dangerous in the Americas. The .us sites are about halfway down McAfee’s naughty list of worldwide sites.

Among generic sites, ones that end with .info are the worst, according to the study, followed by sites that end with .net and with family names. Generic sites ending in .com, .biz, .org, .edu and .gov are safer, in that order.

McAfee tests the sites by automatically responding to downloads, sign-up forms or other requests for information and other details, and then waiting to see what sort of bad stuff comes back.

According to its latest “Mapping the Mal Web” study, nearly 20 percent of sites that end in Hong Kong’s .hk contained “malware” or resulted in spam or viruses.

Of course there’s also a bit of “scareware” here by McAfee, in part so it can — surprise, surprise — sell you some more security software.

Just because you visit one of those “dangerous” sites doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get some horrible computer plague. The security software you probably already have should protect you from much of the bad stuff. And unless you’re not too smart, you probably won’t blindly fill out forms and give away your personal info, even if those sites prompt you to do so.

That said, be careful out there.

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