The new king of the malware/spyware hill has taken the title from Tokelau, a small island in the South Pacific. The .hk domain was on number 28 in 2007:

"Just like the real world, the virtual threats and risks are constantly changing. As our research shows, Web sites that are safe today can be dangerous tomorrow. Surfing the Web based on conventional wisdom is not enough to avoid risk online," said Jeff Green, Senior Vice President of Product Development & Avert Labs.

Second place on the bad boys went to China (11%), while Romania (.ro) and Russia (.ru) kept their top five spots: 6.75% and 6%, respectively.

At the other end of the top, Finland (.fi) was found to be the safest online destination (0.05%), followed by Japan (.jp) and Norway(.no).

Other key findings from McAfee report include:
– 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
– Spain (.es) experienced a 91% increase in overall risk
– Tokelau (.tk) and Samoa (.ws) were notably safer in 2008 dropping to 28th and 12th

The complete McAfee "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited" report can be downloaded from here.