Care to hazard a guess at which Web sites represent the biggest threat to surfers? According to the latest survey by Internet security firm McAfee Inc., that dubious distinction belongs to domain names registered in Hong Kong - those that carry the “.hk” extension. According to the report, “Mapping the Mal Web Revisited”, nearly one in five Web sites ending in “.hk” pose some sort of security risk to users.

On the other end of the spectrum, the safest sites were those registered in Finland, with the “.fi” extension, with only 0.05 percent of sites posing a security risk.

Researchers looked at Web sites found in each of the 265 country and generic domains - generally referred to as top-level domains - and ranked them based on several issues. Risk factors included adware, spyware, viruses, spam and browser exploits.

And what about everyone’s favorite, the good old “.com”? That one came in as the ninth riskiest top-level domain.

Here are a few other tidbits from the study:

• The chance of downloading spyware, adware, viruses or other unwanted software from surfing the Web increased 41.5% over 2007.
• Sites which offer downloads such as ringtones and screen savers that are also loaded with viruses, spyware and adware increased over the last year from 3.3% to 4.7%.
• The Philippines (.ph) experienced a 270% increase in overall riskiness compared with last year..
• In Europe, Spain (.es) experienced a 91% increase in overall risk compared with last year.