She may not be as good as Kylie, but Dannii Minogue is the Most Dangerous online celeb in Australia, while Nicole Kidman is No. 2
 |
Fellow homegrown beauties Isla Fisher and Elle Macpherson are not far behind, ranking No. 11, and 16 respectively if you are searching for the celebs using ‘.com’ search engines.
That’s according to McAfee’s Most Dangerous Celebrities 2012 study which found the most dangerous online celebs are nearly all female and warn searching for a celeb’s “nude pictures” or “free downloads” means surfers are likely to run into malware or cybercriminals looking to nick your personal info.
Emma Watson, Jessica Biel and Eva Mendes were the top 3 “Most Dangerous Celebs” online while Cameron Diaz, Megan Fox and Sofia Vergara also made it into the top 10.
Three supermodels made the top 20 list, meaning searching for Bar Refaeli (No. 17), and Kate Upton (No. 20) can result in landing on a risky site rather than pretty pics.
Aussie fans searching on .com.au sites for “Dannii Minogue” and the search terms “free downloads”, “nude pictures” and “fakes” risk running into online threats designed to steal personal information or downloading viruses and malicious software known as malware, warns McAfee.
Almost one in 11 resulting sites for Ms Minogue were identified by McAfee as “risky – even higher than searches for Emma Watson, which identified one risky website in around every eight results.
Cybercriminals often use the names of popular celebrities to lure people to sites that are actually laden with malware. Web users should also be on the lookout for ‘malvertising’, where cybercrims exploit a user’s browser without their awareness, or mask malicious URLs behind shortened URLs.
“Cyber criminals often disguise security threats in what appears to be a harmless website and use celebrity names and free downloads to lure users to their site,” said Melanie Cole, McAfee Asia Pacific.
“Australians, just like users around the world, are at risk of coming across malicious websites when searching for such celebrity content. So to keep safe it’s important to think before you click.”
McAfee Tips to Stay Protected:
· Beware of content that prompts you to download anything before providing you with content. You may want to opt to watch streaming videos or download content from an established site, such as ABC’s iView or Netflix
.· Free downloads are significantly the highest virus-prone search terms. Anyone searching for videos or files to download should be careful as not to unleash malware on their computer.
· Since most people use a variety of devices to search for celebrities, be sure you have up to date, comprehensive security for all of your devices. It’s important to have protection, such as McAfee All Access, on all Internet-enabled devices, including PCs, Macs, smartphones, tablets and netbooks.·
A free version of SiteAdvisor software can be downloaded at www.siteadvisor.com.
