This paper examines free content websites (FCWs) and premium content websites (PCWs) in different countries, comparing them to general websites. The focus is on the distribution of malicious websites and their correlation with the national cyber security index (NCSI), which measures a country's cyber security maturity and its ability to deter the hosting of such malicious websites. By analyzing a dataset comprising 1,562 FCWs and PCWs, along with Alexa's top million websites dataset sample, we discovered that a majority of the investigated websites are hosted in the United States. Interestingly, the United States has a relatively low NCSI, mainly due to a lower score in privacy policy development. Similar patterns were observed for other countries With varying NCSI criteria. Furthermore, we present the distribution of various categories of FCWs and PCWs across countries. We identify the top hosting countries for each category and provide the percentage of discovered malicious websites in those countries. Ultimately, the goal of this study is to identify regional vulnerabilities in hosting FCWs and guide policy improvements at the country level to mitigate potential cyber threats.

翻译：本文考察了不同国家的免费内容网站（FCWs）和付费内容网站（PCWs），并将其与一般网站进行比较。研究重点在于恶意网站的分布及其与国家网络安全指数（NCSI）的相关性，该指数衡量了一个国家的网络安全成熟度及其阻止托管此类恶意网站的能力。通过分析包含1,562个FCWs和PCWs的数据集，以及Alexa前百万网站数据集样本，我们发现所调查的大部分网站托管在美国。有趣的是，美国的NCSI相对较低，这主要归因于其在隐私政策制定方面的较低得分。在其他NCSI标准各异的国家中也观察到了类似模式。此外，我们展示了各类FCWs和PCWs在不同国家的分布情况。我们识别出每类网站的主要托管国，并提供了这些国家中发现的恶意网站百分比。最终，本研究的目的是识别托管FCWs的区域性漏洞，并指导国家级政策改进以减轻潜在的网络威胁。