Security researchers at McAfee identified actress Cameron Diaz as the celebrity most likely to lead you to a malicious site in search results.
Cameron Diaz has gone from being just another one of Charlie's Angels to the
most dangerous celebrity on the Web, according to research by McAfee.
In the latest version of its "Dangerous Celebrities" study, McAfee
found that Diaz had replaced fellow actress Jessica Biel as the celebrity who,
when entered into search engines, was most likely to generate results that were
malicious sites.
Attackers
typically
use popular celebrities as bait to lead victims to sites hosting malware.
Following Diaz in the rankings is movie star Julia Roberts. Next is Biel,
followed by supermodel Gisele B??ndchen and actor Brad Pitt.
"This year, the search results for celebrities are safer than they've
been in previous years, but there are still dangers when searching online,"
said Dave Marcus, security researcher for McAfee Labs, in a statement, adding
that cyber-criminals have gotten sneakier.
"Now they're hiding
malicious
content in -tiny' places like shortened URLs that can spread virally in
social networking sites and Twitter, instead of on Websites and downloads,"
he said.
Searching for Diaz yields a 10 percent chance of landing on a malicious
site. In particular, when "Cameron Diaz and screensavers" was searched,
19 percent of the sites were identified as having malicious downloads. Users
searching under "Julia Roberts and downloads" had a 20 percent chance
of landing on a site with a malicious download, the company found.
Also in the top 10 were: supermodel Adriana Lima, and celebrities Jennifer
Love Hewitt, Tom Cruise, Heidi Klum/Penelope Cruz (tied at 8
th) and
Anna Paquin. Tennis stars Maria Sharapova and Andy Roddick came in at 13
th
and 14
th, respectively. Golfer Tiger Woods ranked 33
rd.
At the bottom of the list were U.S. President Barack Obama and former Vice
Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, ranked 49
th and 50
th
respectively.
"Cyber-criminals follow the same hot topics as consumers, and create
traps based on the latest trends," Marcus said. "Whether you're
surfing the Web from your computer or your phone or clicking on links in
Twitter about your favorite celeb, you should surf safely, and make sure you're
using the latest security software."
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