10 Most Dangerous Celebrities...Online

Feeling risky? Go ahead, type Cameron Diaz or Julia Roberts in your Internet search browser, says computer security firm McAfee Inc. Those two starlets top the company's annual list of the 10 most dangerous celebrities to search for on the Web. Diaz and Roberts likely top this year's because of their recent blockbuster movies, "Knight and Day" for Diaz and "Eat, Pray, Love" for Roberts, and tabloid headline prominence, according to the company. "Cybercriminals follow the same hot topics as consumers, and create traps based on the latest trends," said Dave Marcus, security researcher for McAfee Labs, which conducted the study. This year's research found that consumers searching for Cameron Diaz pictures or downloads ended up with a 10 percent chance of landing instead on a website with threats like spyware, adware, spam or viruses. Diaz replaced Jessica Biel, who fell to the third spot, at the top of the list. Supermodel Gisele Bunchden and actor Brad Pitt round out the rest of the top five. The company compiles the annual rankings each summer using its free software SiteAdvisor, which alerts users to the risk level of a website before they visit. The list was released just minutes before McAfee also announced that computer chip maker Intel planned to buy the company for $7.68 billion in cash. In conducting the research, McAfee security experts found that consumers are becoming savvier about searching online, but that cybercriminals are becoming sneakier in their techniques as well. "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," said Marcus in a company press release. The rest of McAfee's not-so-desirable list "Top 10" list includes supermodels Heidi Klum and Adriana Lima and actors Jennifer Love Hewitt, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz and Anna Paquin. Interestingly, the McAfee Most Dangerous CelebritiesTM study found once again that, "movie stars and models top the "most dangerous" list this year while politicians like Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are among the safest."

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10 Most Dangerous Celebrities...Online

Katie Kindelan

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Katie Kindelan