The Isle Of Cyber Crime
It has no capital, no airport and only 1400 people who call it home, but the tiny isle of Tokelau has become the cyber crime centre of the world.
A new report by an international group tackling internet scams has confirmed that Tokelau, a New Zealand territory, has more malicious registrations under its .tk domain name than any other domain except .com.
These fraudulent web addresses are used for phishing, where emails are sent to random web addresses in an attempt to steal banking information and other personal details.
Tokelau sold its domain name to a Dutch company, BV Dot TK, which provides the domain free worldwide, making it an easy target for scammers.
“By offering free domain names, .tk has become the third largest country code top-level domain after Germany’s .de and Great Britain’s .uk,” The Anti-Phishing Working Group wrote in its latest global report, released at a technology conference in Malaysia this week.