Ireland's ie domain has been found to be the second safest in the world.
The Mapping the Mal Webreport by anti-virus software firm McAfee rated the level of abuses such as unwanted pop-ups and bundled adware; viruses and spyware; and unauthorised sharing of confidential information.
Some 265 domains were analysed including top level domains such as .uk and .de (Germany) and generic domains such as .com. They were then ranked according to the percentage of sites on the domain found to be "risky".
Finland rated top of the survey at 0.10 per cent, Ireland was second at 0.11, and Norway was third on 0.16 per cent.
Chief executive of the IE Domain Registry David Curtin said the results confirmed the .ie domain was good for business, helping to foster e-commerce.
"The .ie domain name is governed by a managed registry model, which means that applicants for a domain name must authenticate their claim to a domain name.
"The benefits of this are there are virtually no cyber-crimes, identity theft nor credit card fraud, less incidences of spam and virtually no cyber-squatting," Mr Curtin said.
Among the riskiest domains were Romania (.ro) with a 5.6 per cent rating and Russia (.ru) with a 4.5 per cent rating. The Pacific island of Tokelau rated worst at 10.1 per cent.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation yesterday warned that internet abuses were so prevalent that the global site identity system is in danger of descending into havoc.
The United Nations body said cybersquatters were creating a "speculative market" in domain names through techniques such as automated mass harvesting of expired TLDs and "domain-name tasting".