info Spamhaus Report: Top gTLDs Associated with Malware (22 December 2024)

[Helmuts]

As an owner of a (rather small) hosting company and also a number of online communities, I often see TLDs that are abused more than others. And, this beautiful morning decided to check various Spamhaus reports on what's new in the spammer and malware world, in specifics, in relation to the domain names.

It got interesting for me, and I decided to summarize it and share it here at DNF.

Here’s a report on Spamhaus data on the top gTLDs associated with malware as of 22 December 2024.
Source: Spamhaus Project, 22 December 2024
Ref: https://www.spamhaus.org/reputation-statistics/gtlds/malware/

Rank	gTLD	Current Score	Previous Score	Bad Reputation Score	Total Observed	Monthly Change
1	.cam	42	11	0.0137	11,445	+282%
2	.click	64	20	0.0014	192,471	+220%
3	.store	105	11	0.001	484,057	+855%
4	.cyou	18	10	0.001	49,674	+80%
5	.icu	26	26	0.0008	106,812	0%
6	.shop	103	27	0.0005	959,561	+281%
7	.net	177	152	0.0004	2,478,729	+16%
8	.top	77	80	0.0004	751,468	-4%
9	.site	48	12	0.0004	486,643	+300%
10	.cfd	20	17	0.0004	141,376	+18%
11	.sbs	18	29	0.0004	133,717	-38%
12	.com	1,403	839	0.0003	31,232,280	+67%
13	.org	156	579	0.0003	2,361,121	-73%
14	.info	50	70	0.0003	644,164	-29%
15	.biz	21	28	0.0003	203,313	-25%
16	.xyz	33	24	0.0001	1,219,513	+38%
17	.online	23	14	0.0001	724,123	+64%

Key Observations

• The gTLD “.store” has seen an unprecedented increase of 855% in its monthly bad reputation score.
• Traditional TLDs like “.com” and “.net” remain prominent due to their vast size, but their bad reputation scores suggest large-scale abuse.
• gTLDs such as “.cam,” “.click,” and “.shop” also show significant increases in bad reputation scores, indicating growing misuse.
• The gTLD “.org” improved its reputation significantly with a 73% reduction in its score.

Understanding the Bad Reputation Score

The bad reputation score is determined by the ratio of bad domains to total domains, weighted by the size of the TLD. This score highlights not only the scale of abuse but also the effectiveness of anti-abuse policies.

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