SANS ISC: InfoSec Handlers Diary Blog

• SANS Site Network
  • Current Site
  • SANS Internet Storm Center
  • Other SANS Sites Help
  • Graduate Degree Programs
  • Security Training
  • Security Certification
  • Security Awareness Training
  • Penetration Testing
  • Industrial Control Systems
  • Cyber Defense Foundations
  • DFIR
  • Software Security
  • Government OnSite Training

InfoSec Handlers Diary Blog

I read an interesting blogpost: Domain Whitelist Benchmark: Alexa vs Umbrella

The author reported that around 1400 domains on Malwarebytes' hpHosts EMD blocklist were in the top 1,000,000 domains Alexa and Umbrella lists. I was interested to know how high these domains ranked, and fortunately they had shared the results. But I was not able to download the list (406 error).

Thanks to the detailed explanations, I was able to reproduce the results. I have 1413 domains on the Umbrella list and 1361 domains on the Alexa list.

Here are high ranking domains on the Alexa list:

Here are high ranking domains on the Umbrella list:

It is interesting to see that domains on a blocklist score really high on lists that happen to be used as whitelists too.

Didier Stevens
Microsoft MVP Consumer Security
blog.DidierStevens.com DidierStevensLabs.com