Be careful what you search on the Internet, because you never know what you might get yourself into.
More often that not, searches for a certain subject could lead you into a digital danger zone. Now, taking advantage of our interest in celebritites, malware developers are starting to use a new method to lead us to the websites that may host malware and online threats.
According to The Guardian, cybercriminals have been riddling search results by associating websites with malware viruses to popular celebrity names. Not only will these websites steal our personal data, they will also harm our devicess.
As such, for its 9th annual “Most Dangerous Celebrities” list, Intel Security conducted a new study using McAfee WebAdvisor to find out which celebrity name commonly searched on the Internet could generate search results to risky sites.
Coming up from his #2 spot in 2014, Dutch DJ/producer Armin van Buuren is revealed to be the most dangerous celebrity to search online.
Regarding the risks associating with searching for van Buuren online, Intel Security explained:
So, how dangerous is it exactly to search for the trance music legend? To be precise, searching for van Buuren presents a 17.92 % of running into online threats — if a user clicked all the results generated by the search terms. That’s nearly a 1 in 5 chance of landing on a site that has “malicious” written all over it.
The top 10 list is as follows:
- Armin van Buuren (17.92%)
2. Luke Bryan (17.64)%
3. Usher (16.67%)
4. Britney Spears (16.39%)
5. Jay Z (15.83%)
6. Katy Perry (14.86%)
7. Amy Schumer (14.72%)
8. Betty White (14.03%)
9. Lorde (13.61%)
10. Nina Dobrev (13.19%)
Other musicians featured in the Intel Security “Most Dangerous Celebrities” list include Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Kenny Chesney, Selena Gomez, Zendaya, Kanye West, Afrojack, Miley Cyrus, and Nick Jonas.
For Asia, action stars Donnie Yen and Jackie Chan, occupy the top 2 spots in the Singaporean list. Other celebrities included the list are Jay Chou, SNSD Girls’ Generation, Gong Li, Daniel Henney, Andy Lau, Angelababy, Maggie Q, and Jun Ji-Hyun.
In response to the Intel Security list, Armin took to his official Facebook page to post his reaction:
According to The Guardian, cybercriminals tend to take advantage of public interest in pop culture events and set up websites that will enable to steal private data.
Thus, celebrities become a threat to online security because their music, movies, TV programmes, and even personal lives are often the pegs for risky sites.
Source: The Guardian.
