IEDR News Thursday, 3rd December, 2009

Ireland's web domain .ie is safest in Europe, second safest in the World

The IE Domain Registry (IEDR), the managed registry for Ireland's official internet address .ie, today welcomed the results of the 2009 McAfee Mapping the Mal Web report, which has ranked the country's web domain .ie the safest domain name in Europe and - for the second time in the past three years – the second safest country domain in the World after Japan (.jp).

The top ranking in Europe is a first for the Irish namespace, which was one of 104 top-level domains (TLDs) assessed by McAfee this year. The report ranks the world's domains in order of safest to riskiest by examining the extent to which they contain risky websites, malicious downloads or send out spam. Reported to have a 0.1% risk, the rating for .ie contrasts with that for the unmanaged .com domain, which is now considered the second riskiest top-level domain in the world with 32.2% of sites posing a security risk.

Commenting on the results, Mr. David Curtin, Chief Executive of IE Domain Registry (IEDR), said "We are particularly pleased with .ie's ranking by McAfee as the safest top-level domain in Europe and second safest country domain in the world. This strong performance is a direct result of the managed registry model IEDR operates to oversee the .ie namespace. By asking, checking and confirming that registrants of .ie websites are who they say they are (i.e. can authenticate their claim to a .ie domain name), IEDR can ensure a high level of traceability to .ie website holders, which in turn builds greater trust and confidence for the consumer. Customers surfing or shopping on a .ie website have the benefit first and foremost of knowing who they're doing business with and secondly, the security of transacting on a domain identified as having virtually no cyber crime, identity theft, credit card fraud and fewer incidences of spam.