Tokelau - the riskiest web domain

Enjoy the beaches of Tokelau. But beware the South Pacific island nation's Web sites.

That's the message from security software company McAfee recently conducted a survey ranking the world's most dangerous Web addresses. McAfee says more than 10% of all Web sites registered out of Tokelau, identifiable by the ".tk" at the end of their Web address, will expose users to spam, viruses and spyware.

The result is a unique travel guide for Web surfers. Among larger countries, Romania and Russia topped the most dangerous list, with 5.6% and 4.5% of their sites ranked as risky. The safest countries were Ireland and Finland, which both had risk factors of 0.1%.The riskiest generic domain name of all is ".info"; sites there have a 7.5% chance of being dangerous.

The top 10 are:

No. 1: Tokelau (.tk)
No. 2: Information (.info)
No. 3: Samoa (.ws)
No. 4: Romania (.ro)
No. 5: Commercial (.com)
No. 6: Business (.biz)
No. 7: Russia (.ru)
No. 8: Network (.net)
No. 9: Families and Individuals (.name)
No. 10: Slovakia (.sk)

To see McAfee's interactive map showing risky domains around the world, click here

The results of a recent survey from Harris Interactive show that 71% of adults in the U.S. think that Corporate America's reputation is either "not good" or "terrible." In addition, 48% said that corporate reputation has declined “a lot.”

The question is whether corporations really care. With compelling evidence that corporate reputation has a significant impact on the bottom line, companies would be smart to pay serious attention to their increasingly bad reps. The evidence is hard to ignore:

Companies still at risk of Companies House form fraud

Companies which still use paper forms at Companies House could be exposing themselves to corporate identity theft, Digita, an accountancy software company has warned.

Digita says that of the half a million documents filed each month at Companies House, around 50 per month are false. Though this is a small number, they say, the costs associated with a single incident are high.

"According to the Metropolitan Police a single filing fraud could cost £1 million and could very seriously damage the businesses that fall victim," said Ian Manson, author of the report.

The trick is simple: fraudsters can submit fake papers to Companies House and have the official address of the company changed. They can then run up huge debts in the name of a company which knows nothing about the fraud until it is too late.

For full article, click here.

Managing a business risk

Risk taking is an integral part of business and life, but so few people know how to manage it properly says Steve Pavlina, a personal development coach, who adds: “

“The word risk has a slightly negative connotation to it — it implies danger, tension, and possible loss. But risk also has a positive side, the chance of hitting a big win, of getting more on the back side than you invest on the front side”

Europe’s first conference to educate and train new researchers in risk management takes place at the University of Munster, Germany September 6-7. It is being organised by the University, as well as Nottingham University Business School and Bocconi University, who are members of the European Risk Research Network. It will involve keynote speakers from major European business, Price Waterhouse Coopers and a regulatory representative from the European Union. For more details click here.