Not directly (as far as we can tell), but she’s apparently the most dangerous Australian celebrity to search for on your PC if you’re not a fan of malware and identity theft.
Picture by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
McAfee’s released a list of the most “dangerous” celebrities, and the list is dominated by high profile women. Not so much in any kind of diva-throwing-mobiles-at-your-head kind of way, but more those who’ve had their identities used for the creation of dodgy web sites.
Australian celebrity women don’t make the top ten for .com sites, but the most dangerous at the .com.au level is apparently Dannii Minogue, who took the not-terribly-coveted top spot from Nicole Kidman. No particular surprise that McAfee’s results note that the most dangerous combinations with celebrity names included “free downloads” and “nude pictures” as part of the search combination. It doesn’t take that much of a stretch to suggest that this might be a big part of the reason why this year’s top ten list is dominated by women.
The link between celebrities and bad things happening to your PC dates all the way back to the Kournikova virus, but McAfee’s list makes one interesting observation; this isn’t so much about phishing emails of the “See Celebrity IN THE PICTURES THEY TRIED TO BAN OMG!!!” kind of way, but a methodology for poisoning search results to get you to websites with driveby download malware potential. It’s a subtle distinction; one is designed to get you to act in order to become a victim, while the other is more of a hijacking of what you’d already decided to act upon.
Celebrities Are Lures For Scammers [McAfee]
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