Through no fault of her own, actress Jessica Biel is now the most hazardous celebrity on the Internet.
McAfee names Jessica Biel most dangerous celebrity online in 2009.
(Credit: Business Wire)Fans searching online for Biel have a one-in-five chance of hitting a Web site with malware, according to McAfee's third annual report listing Hollywood's most "dangerous" online celebrities.
In general, hunting for Hollywood's in-crowd poses a much greater threat than searching for just about anyone else. For example, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama ranked No. 34 and No. 39, respectively.
Other unsafe celebrities near the top of the cybersecurity company's list include singer Beyonce at No. 2, former "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston at No. 3, and football hero Tom Brady, who came in at No. 4.
McAfee found that searching for photos, videos, downloads, wallpaper, and screensavers of celebrities who made the list could prove hazardous to the health of your computer.
"Cybercriminals are star watchers too--they latch onto popular celebrities to encourage the download of malicious software in disguise," Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs, said Tuesday in a statement. "Consumers' obsession with celebrity news and culture is harmless in theory, but one bad download can cause a lot of damage to a computer."
Using its SiteAdvisor technology, McAfee compiled the list by hunting for celebrity names that produced the largest number of risky sites and the highest percentage of risk.
McAfee's top 15 most "dangerous" celebrities
(Credit:
McAfee)
Want to download a Brad Pitt screen saver? What about images of Beyonce? If you're using a site you're not familiar with, you may want to reconsider.
According to McAfee's new "riskiest celebrities in cyberspace" list, when searching for "Brad Pitt," "Brad Pitt downloads," or Brad Pitt wallpaper, screen savers, and pictures, Internet users experience an 18 percent chance of stumbling upon sites containing malicious code. This includes drive-by malware that can infect your PC without asking you to download anything. Such social engineering, once reserved for e-mail, is now being used to populate search results with fake sites for these personalities.
After reading McAfee's list, we were careful to download this shot of Brad Pitt from Warner Bros.' official Ocean's 12 movie site.
(Credit: Warner Bros.)One site advertising Angelina Jolie downloads, for example, contained 978 hidden malware-infected wallpaper and photo downloads, said McAfee. A site dedicated to Jessica Alba linked to other bad sites, contained misleading offers to gather information and produced a high number of spam e-mails when an e-mail address was provided.
This is the second year McAfee has compiled the list. The information comes from its Site Advisor technology, which analyzes Web sites and ranks them as either safe for viewing or suspected of containing malicious content.
Topping the list for male celebrities are Pitt and Justin Timberlake, while Beyoncé and Heidi Montag lead the women celebrities used.
The complete list
- Brad Pitt
- Beyoncé
- Justin Timberlake
- Heidi Montag
- Mariah Carey
- Jessica Alba
- Lindsay Lohan
- Cameron Diaz
- George Clooney
- Rihanna
- Angelina Jolie
- Fergie
- David Beckham
- Katie Holmes
- Katherine Heigl
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